


A Thousand Words to Tell

by TaleKeeper



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adult Frisk (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Sans (Undertale), Child Frisk (Undertale), Drama, Emotional Hurt, Eventual Romance, Female Frisk (Undertale), Frans - Freeform, Frisk starts as a child grows into adult, Humor, Monsters remain Underground, Multi, Shipping, Slow Build, The Underground (Undertale), Undertale Monsters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 14:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleKeeper/pseuds/TaleKeeper
Summary: In a universe where defining moments in a person's life show up as pictures and markings on the skin, Frisk finds herself trapped in an unending series of repeats, and struggles to define herself as her Life Marks threaten to define her in turn.





	A Thousand Words to Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Okay TaleKeeper, time for a quick short story just to get your creative writing juices flowing again. Ready? Go!
> 
> Edit: I feel like I may have unwittingly deleted a section somewhere while editing the story (the word count is almost 100 less than the word count in my document file) so if you spot a section where it seems the words got cut off, or the sentences just don't mesh together or something, please let me know!

 

It takes her until she is six years old to understand that she is not going to die by the time she turns seven.

“I won’t?”

“No, of course not sweetie,” Ms. Foster chides, with that breathy sort of giggle that means the adult is trying not to laugh at her. She appreciates the effort. “Where on earth did you get a silly idea like that?”

“Mason said that they come alive when you’re seven, and if you have a bad one it’ll swallow you whole,” she explains, and she thinks maybe she should stop listening to Mason, who drops bugs into her hair when she’s not looking and calls her a crybaby when she cries about it.

“That boy,” Ms. Foster sighs, jostling her arms a bit and sitting down in a chair. The bundle in her arms starts to wriggle. “I swear he’s a troublemaker, that one.”

Silently she agrees, but now she is curious and has to make sure. “So it’s not going to eat me up?” she reiterates, because this is a very important issue to get cleared up. She struggles to reach around to her back where she knows the picture is, and ends up flailing a bit.

Ms. Foster chuckles at her. “No, they don’t come alive, and they most certainly do not eat little children up,” she reassures, reaching out with one hand to turn her around. She feels her shirt lift up a little and knows Ms. Foster is looking at her back, so she doesn’t complain. “They don’t do anything but cover your skin, darling.”

“Oh.” She contemplates this very hard, and has to resist the urge to run to the bathroom and hop up onto the stool. Instead she asks, “When do I get more of them?”

“One can never tell,” the adult says unhelpfully, and she resists the urge to huff as Ms. Foster smooths her shirt back down. “The more you grow, the more life you experience, the more you get. Don’t be too impatient for more, dear.”

Ms. Foster really needs to tell that to the other kids. It seems as if every other day Mindy or Gerald or Darnell are bragging about a new mark they’ve gotten, a pretty picture of a dandelion or a splotch of color that’s _totally_ going to become a dragon or a tiger or something awesome looking right, how cool is that right. Every other kid in the home has at least four or five.

She has one.

“They come and go, too,” Ms. Foster continues, and then takes a moment to shush little baby Mathias in her arms, who grumbles and flails one arm again. “None of them are set.”

That makes her feel a little bit happier, but she is still somewhat annoyed.

Ms. Foster seems to understand her annoyance, and smiles a secret sort of smile at her. “They grow as _you_ grow, hun. They define the most important moments of your life, the ones that stick with you, the ones that _mean_ something to you.” The adult chuckles again, and leans down to nuzzle her face against baby Mathias’ nose. “You’ll see.”

She contemplates this statement too, and frowns as baby Mathias wails and smacks Ms. Foster’s face with one chubby hand. She can just see the beginning of a splash of yellow on his cheek, where Ms. Foster had first leaned down to give him a kiss when he’d been handed over to her.

She wants to ask more questions, but baby Mathias has apparently decided that it’s baby Mathias time now, and Ms. Foster starts to fuss over him. So she retreats out of the living room to think about Mason’s stupid face and everything’s she learned, and detours into the bathroom.

Everyone else is outside, so she steps onto the stool and pulls her shirt over her head. Her skin is tan and bare, unblemished in every single way - except for one. Slowly, she turns around, careful to keep balanced on the stool, and stares at her back reflected to her in the mirror.

Life Marks are suppose to keep track of the most defining moments in a life, the ones that mean something.

She wonders what it means that her only mark, at the age of seven, is a shapeless blob of darkened black that spreads across her upper back, an empty and vacant splash of absolute nothingness.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t remember when she got it, only that it’s been there for as long as she can remember. Sometimes it taunts her at night, enveloping her pleasant dreams of beautiful pictures with nothing but inky blackness with tinges of dark blue, that forces her awake to check on the mark and see that it is as empty and blank as it always is.

Strangely, it is the waking that scares her the most. The nightmares are unpleasant enough, but waking up in the middle of the night or early morning, to a room that is nothing but darkness when her eyes are expecting light, is more frightening than the nightmares themselves. There have been many nights when Ms. Foster has had to coax her to sleep, clutching onto the woman’s hand as she desperately tries to stay awake.

She wishes it would hurry up and change already, because making her wait in agony is very rude.

“It can become anything, dearie,” Ms. Foster had once said. “Remember, they can change. Sometimes they take _years_ to form. It’s probably still changing, hun.”

“That’s it?” Darnell had once said. “That’s _lame._ See look, I’ve got this one that looks like a skateboard, I got it when I fell off and hurt my knee. It hurt a whole lot but I got a mark from it, cool right?”

“It’s not very pretty,” Mindy had once said. “Don’t you have any prettier ones? Why’s it all black and blue and gross looking? That’s boring.”

None of the _once said’s_ explain why the only significant fact of her short life has been absolutely nothing at all.

She doesn’t _feel_ like she’s had nothing in her life. Sure, she lost her parents a long time ago, and sure, she doesn’t really have any friends in the house because her mark is so weird and shapeless and empty. She can’t share stories like everyone else can, and they all give her funny looks whenever she approaches. But she doesn’t think that means her life has been _nothing,_ nothing at all.

Maybe she was just never meant for this life. Maybe her skin knows it, and that’s why she never gets another mark. That’s why the one she has remains the same as it always has through the years, as she turns seven then eight then nine then ten, and Mindy has a new kitty cat running across her back and Gerald has a new multicolored paint splash across his cheek and Mason has new blue-coated fingers that he wags in faces.

Apparently, her skin doesn’t agree with her that she is not empty and blank and black on the inside, and continues not agreeing with her as she turns eleven.

Not even when she gets lost on the mountainside, and leaves that emptiness behind to fall down a great, gaping hole.

 

* * *

 

She tries not to feel betrayed that not even falling down a great, gaping hole in the side of a mountain is enough to get a new mark on her skin. She _did_ bruise her knees pretty badly, after all.

Of course, it helps that she is too busy trying not to feel betrayed by other things - namely, talking flowers that seemed very nice and were instead likely to give her nightmares at some point tonight.

Oh, and also the fact that monsters are apparently a thing.

Still, it is difficult not to feel a sense of exasperation as she wakes from her nap to a slice of butterscotch cinnamon pie and no new markings, no matter which expanse of skin she checks in the bathroom mirror. She’s met a talking flower that’s tried to kill her, a goat who tends to an underground ruin, a frog rabbit that blushes with every compliment, and a sort of blurbing fly that bursts into tears the moment she opens her mouth.

Is it so much to think that, oh, maybe, at least _one_ of those things might be significant enough to overwrite the expanse of nothing that coats her back? Apparently so.

Eventually though, she tugs her shirt back down and wanders into the living room, where Toriel is humming to herself and reading a book. The goat monster glances up at her as she approaches, and the smile on her face is just as wide as it had been earlier.

“Well hello, my child,” Toriel says kindly, closing her book in her lap, “did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you,” she answers politely, because she may have fallen down a giant hole and hurt her knees with nothing to show for it, but she was going to be polite about it and not try and attack innocent little girls who’d just fallen down giant holes, darnit.

“That is wonderful,” the goat monster exclaims, beaming at her. “Are you hungry? Would you like another slice of butterscotch cinnamon pie?” Toriel pauses, worry creasing her brow. “You did not _dislike_ the cinnamon, did you?”

The slice of pie is actually still sitting in the room, but she shakes her head to dissuade the worry and walks forward, leaning over the arm of the armchair slightly. Toriel looks a bit startled, but then the monster’s face clears up as she picks up one of her large white paws, turning it over in her hands.

Splotches of color stare back up at her. She’d noticed them before when Toriel had been leading her through the Ruins (one of three Life Marks that she could see), but it is only now, after the shock of everything has worn off, can she fully appreciate what she’s looking at. She hadn’t known that monsters could get life pictures too.

...Of course, she hadn’t exactly known that monsters were a _thing_ either, but that is a small unimportant detail at the moment.

“Ah,” Toriel says, and obligingly sets her book on the nearby table in order to turn towards her. She pulls her paw back only to use it to pick her up, settling her on the goat monster’s lap before allowing her to grab the paw back into her grasp. “You would like to see my Soul Seals, my child? You call them Life Marks, do you not?”

Apparently monsters talk about their pictures just as freely as humans do. She wonders how Toriel knows that humans call these skin pictures Life Marks, but her interest is more important at the moment, and so she focuses on those splashes of color on the goat monster’s paw.

It is a strange mark, a multi-colored mess of colors stacked on one another. It’s as if the mark could never decide on what it wanted to be, and kept adding to the center of itself. She thinks there is a pattern to them, though, because they all seem to resemble handprints partially wrapped around the paw, all piled one on top of the other directly in the center of Toriel’s right palm.

There are seven colors total, but eight separate pieces of the mark, from what she can tell. Two of them are red, the largest all the way in the back and the smallest in the front, less of a handprint and more of a shapeless blob. The other colors look like they could fill in a rainbow with their variety, but they get smaller and less distinct the closer to the front they get, right up to the smallest red one.

She remembers what Ms. Foster used to say about Life Marks, how they change as a person changes.

Toriel is quiet as she inspects the mark, but a small, patient smile lingers on her face. “It is a rather strange seal, is it not?” she says, apparently having guessed her inner thoughts. Privately she thinks the mark is rather beautiful, but then again she only has the one blank nothing spread across her back, so what does she know?

“It has been changed so many times,” the goat monster continues, reclaiming her paw to run her fingers over the mark herself. Her other paw is covered in fire, twisting its way up her arm with a fierce and raging grace. “But each time is...”

The monster trails off, lost in whatever memories caused that Life Mark to appear in the first place, and she wisely chooses to stay silent as Toriel closes her palm, cradling the marks in her fist like she intends to never let them see the light of day again.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t get the chance to inspect the other Life Marks on Toriel’s body in closer detail. Instead, she gets to be burned alive.

She tries to tell herself it’s not _really_ her body that’s being burned, it’s not _really_ her skin that’s writhing in the agony of flames licking and kissing at it. She’s not _really_ being hurt, not physically.

But that doesn’t really help all that much when she feels her very Soul catch on fire, burning alive as she feels all of Toriel’s intent. All of her vindictiveness and suffering, her selfishness and selflessness, her pride and her guilt, and wonders if she wouldn’t prefer the physical version instead, because she’d never known feelings could hurt enough to kill her.

She thinks she knows how Toriel got that fire mark on her left arm, now.

“I couldn’t save any of them,” Toriel gasps out, breathless, barely holding herself together as her paws shake. She flinches, braces for it, but the fire falls around her, away from her, intent clear in every flame that twists away from her body. “I’m pathetic. I can’t even...save one, lost - ”

She SPARES the goat monster, yet again, and Toriel drops to the ground.

“My child,” Toriel whispers, wiping at her eyes, and only then does she realize she herself is shaking as well. She herself is crying a bit, but not, she thinks, for the same reason as the goat monster. Her Soul aches, trembles, and for a moment, she wonders why she even wants to leave.

If _that_ is what waits for her out there, then...

But she can’t. Ms. Foster had said...Life Marks came with life. They grew as you grew. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life living in ruins simply because she was _afraid_ of what was out there. If she wanted to replace the blankness of her back, then she would have to leave.

She needed to live.

“Promise me that you will not let _him_ take your Soul,” Toriel requests, back on her feet as she walks towards her. “Promise me,” she continues, and her voice cracks a bit as the goat monster looks down at her, paws clenched tightly in front of her chest, “that you will be _safe.”_

She doesn’t think it’s a promise she can make. So instead, she reaches out and hugs the goat monster around the waist. Toriel lets out a little gasping sob, and bends down to hug her all the better.

For a moment, there is nothing else in the world, above or below, and she takes that moment to reach upwards. Her fingers brush over the soft fur above Toriel’s left ear, where the wilted golden flower mark is safely tucked into her skin.

And then the warm weight is gone, and she watches as Toriel walks away from her, away from the door with only a brief look back. Toriel walks away, and the phone seems to burn in her pocket as the goat monster disappears down the hallway.

She is alone once again, though it doesn’t stay that way.

“You think you’re _so_ clever, huh” Flowey says, smiling widely as she stares down at him. “You think you can solve _all_ your problems just by being _nice?”_ The golden flower sneers, eyes narrowed. “You think that will work?”

“Maybe,” she says, defensively. She’s not sure where this conviction has come from, but fire races across her mind and across her Soul, makes her face harden. She thinks of fire racing up a white palm, fire flickering around the hallway and making warm eyes spark with selfish intent.

She may desperately wish for more definitiveness to her life than an empty blackness across her back, but if Life Marks define a person’s life, then she doesn’t want to be branded with the dust of monsters coating her skin in flecks of grey.

Flowey doesn’t agree with her, regardless. “But what will you do when it _doesn’t_ work?” he questions her. Not to get an answer, not really, but just to see her reaction. “What’ll you do when you meet a monster who kills you again, and again, and _again?”_

That...is a very, very, good question, and it makes Flowey smile, satisfied.

“I’ve changed my mind. This is so much more...interesting.”

The flower leaves her alone afterwards, alone to her thoughts, and without anything else to do, she trudges forwards. The ground moves upwards, the dark walls of the Ruins begin to get bright and brighter. There is a massive door in the distance, waiting to be stepped out of.

...She could still turn around. She could still go back to Toriel.

But...

Isn’t this what she’s wanted, all her young life? Something to define her, to mark her? Exploring this whole new world that’s been resting beneath her feet this whole time...she won’t ever have another chance at this.

She doesn’t want to be defined by nothing anymore. Surely there is something, something out there that will shape her life. Something that will give her meaning aside from a wash of blackness across her back.

She steps outside.

 

* * *

 

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to realize that Papyrus is a skeleton monster.

She suppose she should have guessed early on, as Sans is clearly a skeleton, and they are brothers. But it’s not until Papyrus is leading her across his random floor tile puzzle, talking about how lucky she is to be witnessing “MANY COOL JAPES FROM A COOL SKELETON” does she realize her mistake.

“You’re a skeleton?”

Both of the monsters pause. Papyrus even has a finger pressed against the button of the machine, but he blinks politely at her. “HUMAN?”

“I mean,” she backtracks, wondering if she’s offended them. Maybe it’s impolite to state what type of monster a monster is? Has she crossed some weird cultural - er, species barrier? “Sorry, I thought you were...” Words fail her as she gestures vaguely towards the confirmed skeleton monster, as if that will explain everything for her.

“heh. seriously, kid?” Sans questions, with an eyebrow raised as if he already knows the answer. “you _art_ that good at telling monsters apart, huh.”

The pun makes her grin a little, but she still feels kind of awkward about the entire mix-up. “Sorry,” she apologizes towards the taller skeleton, who is staring at Sans with a bug-eyed expression that is fast becoming familiar to her, “I thought you were some kind of...Picasso monster.”

Papyrus is still flashing Sans angry eyes, but the name makes his eyebrows furrow over towards her. “NYEH?” he says questioning, rubbing a hand underneath his chin. “PICASSO MONSTER, YOU SAY? I’VE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A MONSTER...THOUGH IF THEY ARE ANYTHING LIKE ME, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, I’M SURE THAT THEY ARE FILLED WITH IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF COOL!”

“no way bro,” Sans denies, winking up at his younger brother, “there’s no monster as cool as you.”

“I SUPPOSE THAT IS INDEED TRUE - ”

“that’s just a _seal_ -y idea.”

She takes the time to study Papyrus some more as Sans attempts to fend off his brother’s irate flailing. Now it seems entirely obvious that Papyrus is a skeleton monster, but she still feels justified in first thinking he was some sort of art-based monster.

Because Papyrus is _covered_ with Life Marks, so much so that he looks like a walking Picasso painting.

She’s pretty sure that’s what they are called - one of those paintings that looks like a huge jumble of different paintings all mushed together to form one coherent piece. That’s exactly what Papyrus looks like, with color covering every visible inch of skin - _bone_ \- that she can see. He is a riot of color and shapes all crammed next to one another, as if the marks are all competing for space on the surface of his body.

There are a few marks she can make out clearly, distinct from the mess of color that adorns him. Rising up the bones of his right leg are reed-like plants, gently waving in a pool of water that is barely visible above his boot. Wrapped around his left upper arm is a splatter that vaguely looks like a handprint, though it extends from the back, like someone is giving him a one-armed hug around the shoulders.

The left side of Papyrus’ skull is covered in literal sparkles, tiny specks of shimmering blue that exploded from the side of his skull towards the center of his face.

There is something pooling inside of her belly as she stares at the monster riddled with the experiences of life, something that grows as she surreptitiously checks the exposed parts of her body. Nothing except tanned skin stares back at her.

She wonders if the emptiness on her back has changed at all.

“kid? you okay?”

She starts, glancing upwards. Sans is the only one to stare back at her, and she can just barely make out Papyrus’ figure storming off in the distance, shouting out something about majestic puzzles being ruined by terrible puns. Sans doesn’t notice her noticing, only raises an eyebrow as she crosses the grey panels to stand next to him.

“Sorry,” she says, though she’s not sure what exactly she’s apologizing for. She’s pretty sure Sans is the only one that’s offended Papyrus today, but she still feels the need to clarify. “Is he mad?”

The skeleton waves a negligent hand through the air. “nah, paps is way too happy trying to capture you to get mad.” Sans pauses, before grinning and winking down at her. “he’s a pretty _chill_ guy, after all.”

A brief burst of wind makes her shiver against her will, and she wonders if Sans somehow magically planned that delivery. Even if he did though, it’s not enough to distract her from her thoughts. “He’s got a lot of Life - Soul Seals,” she says slowly, almost phrasing it like a question as she glances up at Sans.

Who, in turn, only shrugs. “yup. isn’t he the coolest?” Sans reiterates, grinning. He reaches up one skeletal finger and taps it against his left cheekbone. “not like me. i’m a real _bonehead_ compared to my bro.”

She... _had_ wanted to ask, but it’d seemed almost so ironically comical that she’d pretty much avoided looking at it. But now that he’s given her permission, she lets her eyes linger on his cheekbone, and at the single Life Mark there.

It’s a bone. Just a bone, resting on his cheek.

“Do you have more?”

“nope,” Sans says succinctly, ending the word with a distinct _pop!_ of sound. “just the one. you don’t get soul seals by doing nothing, which is a real shame. because, well...” The skeleton shrugs again, winking one eye closed. “doing nothing is my favorite thing.”

She pictures inky blankness spread across her back, and thinks Sans has over simplified things a bit.

Or maybe Life Marks and Soul Seals work differently. Maybe that’s why Papyrus has so many, and Sans has so few, because actions are what cause marks to form on monsters, and on humans they...don’t? Or it takes more than just doing _stuff_ to define a human life.

That seems almost ironically backwards, from what she’s seen. Monsters, who value intent and meaning over action, and humans, who credit actions over intended purposes.

It doesn’t seem right.

But clearly she is still missing something.

“what about you, kid,” Sans asks, eyes roving over her form. She can sense the pinpricks of light in his eye sockets lingering over the exposed parts of her skin, her face and hands and legs, and knows he sees nothing. “bet you’ve got a lot more seals than this lazybones, huh?”

Just one, one that defines her life with nothing.

“A few,” she lies, and he raises an eyebrow but says nothing as she passes by. She tries not to shudder at the feeling of his eyes lingering on her back as she trudges through the snow, moving forwards.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t get very far.

The spear doesn’t fade away, but stays solid enough that she can actually put a hand around it. She doesn’t even dare attempt to pull it out of her stomach. She has no idea what sort of expression is on her face as she stares up at Undyne, but the fish monster’s own features are twisted into something like triumph.

And there is...

“You, put up a fight, human,” Undyne is saying breathlessly, in a voice that sounds very dim, but she’s more focused on the splash of red against the bottom of the fish monster’s cheek. It looks like a miniature spear of some sort, against her blue chin.

It sits exactly where she’d sent the last spear back towards the monster, ricocheted on the green shield Undyne had cast on her Soul, before she’d misstepped and felt the second spear rip into her body.

Not her body. Her Soul. It didn’t hurt.

Not physically.

“Guess you were pretty cool after all,” the fish monster continues on, and there is something that almost sounds like admiration in her tone of voice. But it is drowned out - or is it herself that is being drowned? - as Undyne reaches up to brush at her chin, wiping off the sweat.

The splash of red doesn’t go away with the swipe of her hand.

And as she feels the world begin to fade away, her last thought is of how unfair it is that Undyne has gained a new Life Mark, because her death has had more impact on a person than her life ever has.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t stay dead, and this time, she doesn’t even flinch as she checks herself over in the reflection of a pool of water, and finds only inky blackness on her back.

If anything, it looks like it’s spread out some, so she supposes that’s a start.

It is the first time she dies, but it is not the last, and she doesn’t even think to question why or how she keeps coming back to life, why and how Undyne keeps repeating the same lines as if she’s never said them to her before. Like she doesn’t even remember.

It’s almost as if she is living in a movie, she comes to realize after dying for the fifth time. The movie rewinds every time she dies and goes back to a certain point, and she is the only one who remembers.

Does that make her the hero of the movie, then? Or the person rewinding the tape over and over again?

In the end she decides it doesn’t really matter much, when she keeps dying to Undyne’s spears. Because it’s all leading up to the grande finale of the movie, right? When she can free all the monsters? That’s what a movie hero would do, rather than kill a monster to save herself. She would free them, instead. Somehow.

That would definitely be worthy of a Life Mark, wouldn’t it?

 

* * *

 

So she does. She goes along with it, and rushes towards the end of the movie.

She has a playdate with Undyne and burns down a house, travels outside of Waterfall and into Alphys’ lab, meets robots made of magic and bolts, and grabs dinner with Sans. She climbs away from a terrifying spider and dances with a celebrity, and listens to the sorrows of the Underground. She goes on a date with Alphys that bizarrely ends in a training session, and explores the ruins of a lab and meets meshes of creatures that are a lot less scary than they look. She stands underneath golden light as Sans judges her and then stands in front of a darkened archway, and tries not to think back to Flowey’s words from long ago, about facing a monster who will never stop killing her.

She is scared, but she is determined, so she walks through the archway.

“Howdy,” King Asgore says, and then little is said afterwards, even though it is obvious there is much to be said. She can’t help but look at his forehead, where it looks like tiny rivulets of blood are running out from underneath his fringe, and down to his right arm which is covered in burn marks, but it is difficult to makes out details as he ducks his head, bids her farewell, and prepares to harvest her Soul.

And that is how she gets to see Toriel again.

And she gets to see everyone come together as well as they all band together to give her support. Toriel and Sans do a good job riling Papyrus up while Undyne gives Asgore a few comforting pats on the back, and Alphys is busy fiddling with her lab coat as she blushingly glances up towards the fish monster. All while showering her with love and praise.

They come, united in their love for her. It is a strange feeling, to know she has made such an impact on the Underground. As if she has left her own Life Mark on the inhabitants. The sight of all of them together warms something inside of her, and she smiles, then giggles, then laughs, for the first time in a long time.

And then she dies.

Except not really, as she struggles to reach the lost Soul of Asriel Dreemurr from deep within the recesses of himself. It hurts, oh how it hurts, but she is determined. She doesn’t have time to think of Life Marks, she doesn’t have time to think of the Surface, she doesn’t have time to think of anything except the raw anger, denial, frustration, _sadness,_ that she feels from Asriel’s every blow.

She thinks of how soft he feels, as she hugs him farewell.

And then there is really not much time to think of anything at all, as she and her friends stare in awe at the light from the setting sun. Even she is in awe of it, as if she is seeing the sun again after years of being Underground, rather than a single night.

“Frisk...you _live_ with this?” Undyne exclaims, her entire body stretching upwards as if she’s second away from snatching the sun right from the sky. “It feels so good...the air is so fresh! I feel so alive!”

“It is beautiful, is it not?” Toriel chimes in, resting her fire-coated paw on her shoulder. “But we really must think on what comes next.”

Asgore clears his throat a bit sheepishly. “Ah, yes,” he says. “My friends, this is the beginning of a new era...”

She lets the words wash over her, but she glances down the line. She can already see a maniac sort of gleam in Papyrus’ eyes as Asgore talks of befriending the humans, and Alphys’ face is already blushing like she’s already imagining all the other anime fans she’ll now get to meet. Toriel is giving Asgore the side eye again, but that is not surprising. There are a lot of lingering, hurt feelings there, that need time to heal either way.

She watches her friends live their first few moments on the surface, and as she does, Sans catches her eye and winks.

Toriel holds out her paw as their friends began breaking off one by one, and she glances at it. The smallest red mark on top has changed into a fully-fledged handprint, nestled comfortably and lovingly in the center.

The darkness against her back...surely it has changed. Surely her life has been filled with something, now. She is certain of it. _She_ feels like her life is full of something that has been missing all along. And if not that, then she is at least certain of a Life Mark elsewhere on her body. Perhaps a small sun, or a hazy mountainside dotted with friends.

Her life is no longer empty. This is what it means to live.

As Toriel slides a paw into her hand, she turns her face towards the sun, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

At the age of eleven, she finally gets another Life Mark.

The golden flowers encircle both her wrists like shackles, uncompromising and unrepentant. She tries not to imagine a face smirking out at her from every single one as she kneels in the familiar bed of golden flowers.

 

* * *

 

“Repeat?” Toriel questions bemusedly, not pausing as she carefully leads her across the spiked puzzle trap in the Ruins. “I do not understand, my child. What do you mean?”

“It’s not,” she tries, and fails, because she’s still somewhat in shock, which makes it troubling to express to someone else entirely. “Isn’t this all the same? We’ve...we’ve done this before.”

Toriel _does_ pause this time, but they are across the puzzle by now. “Before? I’m afraid you are confused.” The goat monster pauses again, her expression taking a mildly terrifying turn. “That miserable little creature...he must have hurt you even worse than I had feared. Quickly, my child, we must get you home for some pie!”

“But,” she tries again, as Toriel begins pulling her at a faster pace, “wait, no - stop!” She rips her hand from the other’s grasp, but before Toriel can protest, she grabs the monster’s paw and flips it over.

A colorful Life Mark greets her, eight layered pieces made of seven different colors. The smallest red mark on top looks like little more than a shapeless blob.

“What has - oh, you are curious?” the goat monster guesses, and nods as she stares, helpless, at the shapeless blob of red on top of all the other colorful handprints. “It is only natural to be so...but there will be plenty of time to see them, my child. Come.” Toriel takes up her hand again and starts off at a quicker pace. She goes along with it, because her mind is occupied with different things.

The tape has been rewound again.

Not by a few minutes, or even a few hours.

All the way back to the beginning. Back to where she fell.

It’s just like all the times she died, except now she’s gone all the way _back._ That’s never happened before. She would always go back to moments in time when she’d felt particularly inspired, or determined, or just plain _happy._

_Why._

Why...

She glances down at her wrists.

For the first time since she could remember, she got a new Life Mark. They bind her wrists and look more like chains than anything else, but at least it’s something _new._

Maybe...

Maybe she did something wrong, in the Underground. Maybe she was suppose to do something specific, save a certain monster, and that’s why the tape was rewound to the beginning. Or...or maybe, she has to just do it all _again._ Maybe she has to play the tape a few times, and each time she’ll get a new Life Mark? Is this nature’s way of making up for all the years she never had anything except a black splotch on her back?

...Whatever the case, she doesn’t seem to have much of a choice, does she.

But it’s okay. She did it once before. Parts of it had been terrifying, parts of it had been exhilarating, and dying had never been a fun time. But she’d done it all before, so she could do it again, and she could do it right, this time.

 _Okay,_ she thinks to herself. _Okay._

 

* * *

 

She rushes through the puzzles and the areas as quickly as possible while still being polite, because she’s not going to be remembered as a rude little human, thank you very much.

Though she wishes Papyrus wouldn’t ramble _quite_ so much, but that’s okay. It’s part of the movie - the _game_ , as Asriel called it. She rushes through to reach the ending again, but even as she does, she pays closer attention to her surroundings, just in case there _was_ something she had missed. She notices a few more things. 

Like the fact that Alphys has cameras _everywhere._

She peers through the small waterfall and raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the faint glint reflecting off the camera lens, and raises that same unimpressed eyebrow when she meets Alphys later on, who sweats and rubs a claw against the back of her neck.

“I-I, um,” the lizard monster stutters, and she takes pity on her and sets her eyebrow back down to its normal height. “An early w-warning defensive system to w-watch humans...guh! I mean, to watch out _f-for_ humans, not to watch them like a c-creepy anime s-stalker - ”

“It’s okay,” she sighs, stalling the yellow monster’s frantic apologies.

Alphys sighs as well, maybe relieved that she isn’t completely disgusted at the apparent stalking. “G-good. Because I wasn’t, um. _Watching_ you, you know - I mean I _was,_ b-but not like...” The lizard monster trails off again, wringing her claws in front of her face. “I j-just, I mean...you c-can’t help rooting for the h-heroine, you know?” Alphys finally falls silent again, hiding her face behind her claws.

But her eyes glance down towards her left, and she follows the monster’s line of sight. Alphys’ lab coat has fallen down her wrist slightly, and on her left wrists lies a -

She’s not exactly sure what it is. It kind of looks like a bowl of grey colored ice cream, with one spoon stuck into its mass. A shape rests nearby, looking more like a grey twig than anything else, almost as if it wants to become a spoon but just can’t.

She wants to ask. She almost does.

But she knows Mettaton is waiting just inside the wall, and running through Mettaton and Alphys’ puzzles had been one of the more time consuming moments during her time in the Underground. She really doesn’t want to waste any more time than necessary.

“Yeah,” she says noncommittally, shrugging one shoulder, “I guess. Hey, isn’t there a killer robot somewhere?”

It’s a bit clumsy and not subtle in the slightest, but her prodding does the trick. Alphys blinks, and exclaims, and then launches into her explanation of her role in Mettaton’s creation, and the game continues to play on schedule, right up to Asgore and Asriel and the sun shining relentlessly down on her face.

 

* * *

 

The golden flowers still circle her wrists, but there are a few more creeping up her forearm, up and towards the center before fading off. If she places her arms together, they form a bridge between them like a golden chain, and she struggles to tap down on the sudden dread she feels.

 

* * *

 

The pattern repeats.

No matter how many times she goes through the Underground, the game is replayed back to the beginning, back to the golden flowers. The ones circling her wrists continue to expand until it looks like her forearms are covered with them, constricting and oppressive despite their beauty. They continue to grow up and around her arms, keeping her locked in place.

Something, something is so very wrong, and the uneasy feeling continues to grow. Sometimes, all she can do is stop in her tracks and calm down her breaths as she thinks of the flowers slowing making their way up her arms.

“Yo, isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” she agrees absentmindedly as she clutches the umbrella, though it lists slightly off to one side. MK doesn’t seem to mind however, too enraptured with the sight of the palace on the horizon. She’s seen the sight dozen of times by now, and MK’s insistence on stopping to stare and gawk every, single, time, makes her impatient to move on, to see if she can finally finish the game.

“King Asgore...he’s gonna do it, man,” MK says assuredly. Confidently, even. “He’s gonna get one more human Soul, and he’s gonna set us free! I just know he will!”

Yes...she knows it, too. She wonders if there is another game out there, somewhere, a game where she dies to Asgore but does not wake back up, and Asgore takes her Soul and frees the Underground.

She wonders, briefly, if perhaps that has been her destiny all along - to fade into nothingness like that darkness on her back, for the betterment of all monsters everywhere. That maybe it has never been about _her_ freeing all the monsters, but of allowing Asgore to do it like he’s promised to.

But of course, even if she had _wanted_ to, she can’t exactly die down here. For whatever reason, she just keeps coming back. Back to the castle, back to the MTT Resort. Back to Waterfall, to Snowdin.

Back to the beginning.

Her thoughts spiral downwards, and all of a sudden she is struck with the urge to keep moving, to not see what happens next...an almost sadistic urge to prevent what is coming. “C’mon,” she says impatiently, tugging on the side of MK’s sweater, “we have to keep going.”

“Yeah,” MK murmurs, but he doesn’t move from his spot even as she tugs harder. He continues to stare at the palace in the distance, eyes gone somewhat vacant, and she knows it is too late. 

“Yo...I just got a feeling, ‘ya know?”

She turns away so that she doesn’t have to see the new, simplistic star-shaped marks on MK’s eyelids as he closes his eyes, basking in the assurance of a promised better future. She turns away and continues heading to the next tunnel, and hears MK’s feet trotting behind her after a moment. The first few times she had excitedly shared the news of his new Soul Mark with him, and they had spent a good thirty minutes running to different pools of water to stare at and remark on them.

Now, it has become routine to move on without comment. He’ll notice his new pictures eventually, and they’ve already wasted too much time.

 

* * *

 

She’s lost track of how many times the game has been replayed, now.

She sees the sun a little bit faster each time, goes through the motions a little bit faster each time, and each time she wakes back up in the golden flowers. The ones on her skin have completely enveloped her forearms at this point - not a single patch of her skin is tan anymore, all of it golden - and they continue to climb up to her shoulders, creeping towards her neck.

It is exactly the type of Life Mark that Mindy might have once exclaimed was so pretty, and Darrell might have scoffed at and said it was so girly but kinda cool, maybe. It’s exactly the kind of picture she’s wanted her whole life.

And yet all she can think of is the flowers growing to encircle her neck, strangling her.

The dread that has been building since she first got the flower mark continues to grow as she walks through the Ruins, watches Toriel disappear down the corridor in order to prepare a pie. She immediately starts moving after her, hurrying, rushing to get through to the end, because this time, maybe this time, she’ll do it right. This time, she will -

The Froggit hops in front of her, and croaks.

“Sorry,” she says, for the first time, and walks ahead, “‘I’m in a hurry.” The Froggit doesn’t understand her, and again for the first time, hops in front of her again with another croak. “You’re super pretty,” she tries, but something in her tone is biting and insincere, enough for the Froggit to simply tilt his head and croak again. He doesn’t move, even as she barrels forward and bounces off of him.

“I said you’re pretty, okay?” she snaps as she stands back up, and the dread feeling grows stronger as he doesn’t move. She’s running out of time, the flowers will claw their way around her neck she just knows it, she has to make it to the _end._ “You’re pretty. You’re pretty! You’re really pretty!”

He tilts his head. And croaks. And doesn’t move. He doesn’t move, she’s running out of time, and she’s

_so frustrated_

“Just - ”

_so tired_

“ - go - ”

_so scared_

“ - _away!”_

It takes her a moment, after that second of blinding white _frustrationachefear_ passes, to realize she’s smacked her hands against the Froggit’s body. It takes another moment afterwards to realize that the Froggit has completely disappeared, leaving behind only a pile of chalky grey dust.

From behind a nearby pillar, a Whimsum sobs and flies away. She hardly pays it any mind as she slowly, painfully, begins to move, until she realizes she has no trouble walking. One step, two step...and she is back on the trail. Moving forward.

It is...

Easy.

So easy.

Easier still when another Froggit hops in front of her, and she tries complimenting him, she really does. She tries it once, and the Froggit tilts his head, the faintest of flushes on his cheeks.

But he doesn’t move.

So she -

 

* * *

 

“heh. someone borrow your _humerus_ , kid?”

She blinks, glancing upwards, to find that Sans has actually followed her down the tunnels, abandoning his telescope. Maybe he felt offended she hadn’t stopped to look through it, ruining his prank?

“cause, well,” he continues on, hands shoved in his pockets, “you don’t seem to be using it, right now.” The skeleton grins down at her, but something seems slightly off about that familiar grin. “that eager to meet the king, huh?”

She shrugs a bit uncertainly, ignoring the slight pain radiating on her back. This is the fastest she’s ever gotten to Waterfall, and she’s well on her way to Hotland, and then the Core after.

It had been...

Easy.

Almost too easy, to simply swat away the monsters that kept coming after her. Kept delaying her, stalling her - some of them even _killing_ her. And, she’d found that the more monsters she had... _killed_ in turn, the less came to seek her out. Just a few of them, and the rest left her alone for the most part. She didn’t seek them out, and they didn’t seek her out as much, either.

It was easy. Faster. Far faster than suffering every encounter and performing a myriad of confusing actions in order to satisfy them. They just...had to leave her alone.

Why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone?

“dunno why you’re in such a rush, though,” Sans comments, easily walking aside her as she continues moving forward. “you’re really missing out on all the underground has to offer. my brother...he’s been cooking up something special for ‘ya. i wouldn’t actually eat it,” the skeleton wisely advises, “but, well...i think it’d be a skele _ton_ of shame to miss out.”

A tinge of guilt worms its way through the steady, frantic beat of her heart that has become as familiar as the flowers on her arms. Toriel, Papyrus...some of the dog monsters. It’d been easier, she’d discovered, to simply go through the motions with them. And it’s not like she _wanted_ to kill monsters, it was just faster. Easier. She just wanted to be left alone enough to finish this game, once and for all.

Though the idea of Papyrus waiting patiently for her in front of his house - as this is the first time she’s moved on to Waterfall instead of turning back around after her fight with the skeleton - it fills her with guilt.

She...she just doesn’t have time.

“Sorry,” she mumbles to the ground so that she won’t have to look up at his face. She doesn’t know why, but the thought of disappointing Sans, of all monsters, fills her with even more guilt. “I don’t have time.”

Sans doesn’t say anything for a moment, long enough for her to pick up her walking pace. But then she feels him rest a hand on one shoulder, and she dares glance up to him grinning down at her, much the same as he always is.

“hey, don’t _sweater_ about it, kiddo,” he says, flicking a finger against the collar of her striped sweater. Despite everything, the pun actually prompts a small quirk of her lips. “paps’ll find something else to entertain him. but uh...take care of yourself, alright? you can...welp. take your time. king fluffybun’s not going anywhere, promise.”

There is something in his words that she can’t quite make out, some strange tilt of his tone...but then she turns a corner too quickly and a burst of pain runs up her back, and she winces, hard enough for Sans to pause and stare at her critically.

“huh. you look just like paps when i tell a bad joke or two,” Sans teases, but he forces her to a stop with the same hand on her shoulder. “you doing alright, kiddo? you hurt?”

She is about to deny it when her back twinges again, and she nods. “I fell,” she exclaims shortly, which is the truth - just before Sans’ telescope she had slipped and fallen off a ledge. Only a few feet, but she’d banged her back pretty hard. And she’s out of monster food. “Hurt my back.”

“heh heh. starting to _fall_ for the underground, huh?”

She starts, the joke hitting just a little to close to home to appreciate it, but he’s already moving around towards her back. “c’mon kid, lemme see.”

There is a golden star waiting for her in front of Undyne’s confrontation, she knows...but she still has along ways to go until then. And after slowing down for the first time in what feels like forever, she hesitates for a moment, before giving in and lifting a finger behind her as well as she can to point to the spot that hurts. The back of her right shoulder. Sans chuckles behind her but carefully pulls up her sweater to try and see the mentioned area. She feels the middle of the sweater pulled up to the nape of her neck -

And Sans pauses.

Does it look really bad? It doesn’t even hurt _that_ much, but maybe it looks worse than it actually is?

She starts getting even more worried as Sans continues to stare, not doing anything other than pinching her sweater between two fingers. “Sans?” she finally asks, and she gets the vague sense of the monster behind her twitching slightly. “Is it bad?”

Silence.

“...Sans?”

The skeleton abruptly releases her sweater, letting it fall back in place, and she immediately turns around. “nah, not too bad,” Sans answers, easy grin back on his face as she stares up at him. “got a pretty big bruise, though.”

“Oh,” she says, dumbly, because she isn’t sure what else to say.

“here.” An object is tossed at her from seemingly out of nowhere, and she juggles with it a moment before steadying it in her hands. It is a nice cream bar. “eat that and, welp. you’ll be golden.”

“Thanks,” she says, but to her surprise Sans is already heading back down the tunnel, back to his telescope. He throws a hand over his shoulder in farewell, but doesn’t turn around as he disappears around the corner. On sudden impulse, she rushes forward to peer around the corner, and is not particularly surprised to find that he’s gone.

Everything else though...feels a little strange. Was her bruise really bad enough to warrant that reaction from the skeleton?

The nice cream bar is fairly calling out to her, but she stalls, heading towards the end of the pathways. It takes her a few minutes, but she eventually finds a quiet waterfall that flows smoothly enough to make out her reflection fairly well. She drops the nice cream bar, pulls up her sweater high enough to flip it over her head, and turns her back to the waterfall.

Sans was right. The bruise is big, but not all that terrible looking. It looks fairly normal, actually. She sighs in relief, and begins to pull her sweater back on.

And notices.

Her eyes have gotten so used to passing over the mark on her back, the blue-black mass of nothing spread over her shoulder blades and down the center of her spine, that she almost misses it. But in the still reflection of the waterfall, with her body twisted at an awkward angle to view her back, she can just barely make them out.

Two circular red dots, with a thin crescent moon of the same color laying beneath them on its side. All three of them are small, and rest directly in the center of the inky blackness spread across her back.

It almost looks like someone is smiling, and staring back at her from the darkness.

 

* * *

 

Something different happens.

Flowey appears at the Barrier, but not her friends. They don’t appear. She can only watch as the friendliness pellet strikes straight through Asgore’s Soul, and Flowey pops up with his customary smile.

There is no Asriel. There is no shattering of the Barrier. There is only her, after a horrifyingly long encounter with Flowey, walking through the Barrier with the remnants of Asgore’s Soul.

And then she is outside once more, peering up at the sun. For lack of anything better to do, she makes her way back down the mountain, but she stops again in a clearing about half way down. The sun is still in the sky and only just beginning to set, casting a familiar orange glow across the sky.

She waits. She should go back to the orphanage now, but she waits. There’s no point making the effort to walk down the mountain if the game is going to be replayed once the day ends. That’s what always happens.

It shouldn’t happen now. Things are different. Not _better,_ but...different. That should be enough, right?

Is the game over, now?

The shrill ring of her cell phone startles her off of the log she’d been resting on, and by the time she’s caught herself back to a sitting position it has gone silent. She stares at the name tag on the phone, watching Sans’ name flash for a few minutes, before it abruptly switches off, leaving behind an alert for one new recorded message.

There is a part of her that thinks to ignore the new message. That same part of her remembers how Sans had picked up her shirt and paused, staring at the once empty abyss resting on her back.

She remembers how, once, she would have given anything to have that Life Mark change into something else, anything else.

“things are pretty different here.”

The phone feels cold against her ear as she listens to Sans’ voice, glib and low as she remembers it to be. Toriel has become the new Queen according to him, while Papyrus...Papyrus is still waiting for his date. Monsters are mourning their friends and families that have gone missing.

“anyways. i hope you’re...you know. happy on the surface, kiddo. because, well...”

The wind pulls against her hair as the sun finally sets on the mountain.

“a lot of monsters died, getting you there.”

There is a ringing finality to Sans’ voice as it cuts off and the phone goes silent, and she doesn’t bother replaying the message, only letting her phone down onto the dirt. The motion kicks up a cloud of dust, and she instinctively wipes her hands to get the residue off of her.

It is only when the residue remains permanently attached to her hands does she realize her golden flower Life Mark has changed once again.

It feels like a lifetime ago when she first fell into the Underground, a lifetime when she had been younger and more innocent, despite the fact that she hasn’t physically aged a day. Hadn’t she sworn something, back then?

That she would rather be without Life Marks, then have the dust of monsters define her life?

The wind has stilled at this point, but she finds herself shaking all of a sudden, almost uncontrollably. Her throat feels clogged. The air is leadened. It almost hurts to breathe as she stares down at the dust-coated flowers on her hands.

It is late into the night when she is finally able to drift off into sleep, and for the first time since falling into the Underground, she desperately hopes she will wake up in a bed of golden flowers.

 

* * *

 

She does, and finds that the golden flowers on her skin have indeed reached her neck. They creep in from both shoulders. Two flowers on her collarbone are less than an inch apart from one another.

She tilts her head side to side in Toriel’s hallway mirror, observing the way the flowers stretch to accommodate the movement of skin. It had taken her more than twice as long to make her way to Toriel’s house as it had before. The same, nagging feeling of needing to hurry through the Underground had arisen all the same - but so had the sight of her hands, the golden flowers coated in grey dust. She had taken her time.

“Oh, my child,” Toriel asks, concerned, as she wanders her way to the living room. “Did you sleep well?”

The conversation automatically begins playing on repeat in her mind. But instead of answering, she simply climbs into Toriel’s lap, ignoring the goat monster’s surprised glance as she takes the paw filled with colorful handprints and pulls it over herself.

“Oh my,” the former Queen comments, but she doesn’t seem at all displeased. The book is placed on a nearby nightstand as the colorful paw pats at her back, and her eyes begin to slip closed as a familiar melody leaves the goat monster’s lips in a low hum.

She thinks of goat statues and raindrops dripping from a cavern ceiling, and is lulled into false security.

 

* * *

 

She stops trying.

The Underground passes in a blur - not because she rushes through it like she had before, but because she simply stops paying attention. She’s seen it all before, heard it all before...there is nothing left to do. She goes through the routine, the motions, the dates and the hangouts, and finds herself sitting up in a bed of golden flowers.

Again and again and again.

She stops trying to keep count of the days, the number of times the game is replayed. She stops thinking of Life Marks and how she might get more, how she might change hers, how she will define her life.

There is simply no point.

The flowers on her skin seem almost at the verge of circling around her neck every single time she wakes back up, but they never touch. They tremble and shudder, but they never connect. They simply rest on her collarbone, as if waiting for the moment she caves into that old temptation.

Even still, there is some small, hidden part of her that holds onto that lingering feeling of dread, that urges her to speed up the run through of the Underground by killing monsters. It would be easier, faster. Less work.

It would be.

She doesn’t.

She simply goes through the Underground. Over and over and over again. Each time is a new day, the same day. She remains an eleven year old girl as she relives that day countless times, letting her body onto auto-pilot as she disconnects herself. It is almost like watching the game from afar as a whole now, watching herself go through the motions and not really experience them anymore. There’s no point anyways.

Because she thinks she has finally figured it out. What her Life Mark has been trying to tell her all along.

Playing the same game over and over again...it’s almost as if she falls back down the hole each time she wakes back up, isn’t it.

If her life is defined by nothing, then that is what she is meant to do. To fall back down again and again and again. If it means keeping her hands free of any more of the dust that sprinkles the golden flowers painting her skin, then she will be nothing more than a character in the game, no matter how many times it is replayed.

It’s kind of funny, in the end. Mason had been right all along.

 

* * *

 

She has no conscious reasoning of it, no defining moment of becoming enlightened. She is aware of life continuing on as usual in an unending pattern of repeat, the same conversations, the same encounters, the same fights.

Until there is a moment, seemingly out of the blue, that she finds herself standing in front of Asgore’s throne room.

She blinks, and looks upwards. She actually finds herself standing at the door - physically there, no longer detached as if her spirit is watching her body move from afar.The doorway looms above her, and from inside, she can her the faint echoes of a kindly goat monster watering his flowers.

It is the most she has seen and heard in...weeks. Months? Certainly not years.

Certainly not.

There is nothing different from what she can tell. Nothing that has suddenly prompted this return to her senses. The archway leading to the throne room offers no explanations, only silently encourages her inwards.

She already knows how the game is going to end. She will face Asgore, Flowey will appear alongside all her friends...Asriel, the Barrier, the surface. She knows it all already, has lived it all a thousand times.

She should really get on with it.

_“heh. it’s a tough choice to make, kiddo. i really don’t envy you.”_

Defeat Asriel and bring down the Barrier? She’s done it a thousand times. Kill Asgore?

Never again.

_“it’s a tough choice to make, kiddo.”_

Not really. There never really was a choice, was there? She nods her head, lifts up her foot, and -

“No.”

\- turns around, and walks all the way back to the Ruins.

 

* * *

 

That is where Sans finds her later, when it is nearly nightfall - or at least close to nightfall as the Underground can predict.

He doesn’t seem surprised as he trudges up to where she is resting against the sealed door of the Ruins, hands held loosely in his pockets. She remembers, vaguely, that he has a habit of showing up unexpectedly, and always seems to know what’s going on wherever she is in the Underground. Sans and his shortcuts.

She wonders if he’s been spying on her all this time, trying to figure out why she’s come back to the Ruins. She’d like to know that herself, too.

The skeleton isn’t surprised, but he still seems at a loss as he stops in front of her. She raises her head to meet his stare, with the Ruins door glowering down at both of them, and for a while there is nothing but silence, until Sans finally breaks it.

“kid,” he says. Slowly, carefully. “whaddya doing here?”

She really _would_ like to know this herself, too, but all she can offer is a shrug of one shoulder, before she buries her head back into her arms, knees drawn to her chest. In the darkness of her arms, it is easy to ignore the cold both inside and out, to let the silence of the Underground sweep over her.

And then a sudden pressure - what feels like arms sweep under her knees and around her back, lifting her upwards. She keeps herself balled up, but that doesn’t seem to bother the person at all. The arms leave her - how is she still being held up in the air? She doesn’t know - but then they surround her again, this time with a jacket enveloping her as well.

She doesn’t complain, it _was_ rather cold.

The chill of Snowdin forest abruptly disappears then, replaced with a somewhat familiar warmth. She thinks she can pick up the faints sounds of a snored “NYEH HEH HEH” before the noise is blocked off by a shutting door. It is pass time she should open her eyes and take in the world around her, but she holds off - even when she feels the press of cotton sheets at her back, and a soft mound under her cheek.

And she is immediately afraid.

“No,” she says - whimpers it, she’ll realize later on. She tries to flail out, but she is suddenly so tired, and the mattress feels so soft and comforting. Still she tries. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“easy, kiddo. i’ve got you.”

“I don’t want to,” she insists drowsily, but already she can feel the losing battle. Her eyes are too heavy to open now, and the pillow under her cheek just feels so soft, so relaxing. It calms the frantic beating of her heart against her will. “Don’t wanna.”

“i know, frisk.”

She whimpers again, and a hand suddenly presses into her head. It is as familiar as it is missed, and she instinctively clutches at Ms. Foster’s hand, unwilling to let her comfort go.

“Please,” she whispers, or thinks she does. Her voice sounds sloppy and unhinged even to her own disconnected ears. “I don’t want to wake up.”

“...”

 _Baby,_ Mason is going to call her in the morning, she just knows it, because she can just vaguely feel the tears prickling at the corner of her eyes, and knows there will be tear tracks on her face tomorrow.

“...heh heh. yeah.”

She holds on as she is pulled down into the darkness across her back, the darkness that lies in wait to swallow her whole.

“me neither.”

 

* * *

 

She falls flat on her face.

Privately, she doesn’t think she can really be blamed for that. She had been going through the motions - pushing herself to sit up, then stand up, then start making her way to where Flowey is - only to step off of an unfamiliar rise and plant face first into the ground.

It hurts, but it’s a lot softer than she’s expecting.

That is how she slowly comes to realize, with the last of the sleepy fog leaving her, that she is staring at a floor, that her legs got tangled in a blue jacket as she stepped off the side of a plain looking bed.

A million questions flit through her mind going a mile a minute, until she eventually settles on Toriel’s house, for it is the only thing that makes sense. She must have not noticed waking up in the golden flowers and had instinctively made her way to Toriel’s home. It makes sense.

What _doesn’t_ make sense, she realizes as she creeps out of the door, is the stairway at the far end of the hall, and the sound of something _sizzling_ and _cracking_ down below. She automatically - yet cautiously - makes her way towards the sound.

“HUMAN!”

She stands in the entryway of the kitchen, one hand braced against the wall. Papyrus waves a spatula at her with a particular sort of enthusiasm, though he maintains his position at the stove. The smell of bacon is strong, along with a pot of boiling noodles next to them. Sans is reclining in one of the dining room chairs with a newspaper languidly held in one hand, missing his customary jacket but grinning at her all the same.

It is a familiar grin, and a foreign one at the same time.

“YOU ARE JUST IN TIME, GOOD FRIEND,” Papyrus goes on to say as she edges her way into the kitchen. “VERY PUNCTUAL! BUT OF COURSE YOU ARE - NO ONE WOULD DARE MISS FRIENDSHIP BREAKFAST FROM I, MASTER SPAGHETTITORE!”

“told ‘ya, paps,” Sans remarks, though his attention seems rather fixed on the newspaper as if he’s never read one before. He flips one page, an eyebrow raising as he pulls out a pen from his pants pocket. “no way the human would miss out on some grub.”

“TOO RIGHT, BROTHER!”

“it’s just im- _pasta_ -ble.”

Papyrus pauses from where he’s plating three helpings of noodles to inhale harshly through his nose holes, eyes closing in what is clearly a valiant effort to retain his calm. Sans takes the opportunity to scribble something in the newspaper, eyes alight as they scan the page.

On her part, she’s managed to make her way to the table now, but she lingers by a chair. Neither of the skeleton brothers seem particularly put out by everything that is happening, which she thinks is just a little bit rude, because she feels very close to experiencing a mental breakdown at any moment.

How can she not be? She went to sleep after journeying through the Underground, and instead of waking back up in her bed of golden flowers, she woke up...in Snowdin. With Papyrus making breakfast instead of setting up puzzles. With Sans reading a newspaper instead of playing the trombone up in his room.

She doesn’t know how to handle this, so she takes her cue from the skeletons. She climbs onto one of the chairs where Papyrus has set down a plate, and stares at what is probably breakfast spaghetti, complete with a generous helping of crumbled bacon bits sprinkled on top.

“SANS, I KNOW YOU SUFFER INCREASINGLY FROM EXTREME FITS OF UNCOOL,” Papyrus comments blandly as he takes his own seat, already twirling a fork into his spaghetti, “BUT PLEASE ATTEMPT TO REFRAIN FROM YOUR TERRIBLE JOKES AROUND THE HUMAN. SHE WILL NEED ALL HER STRENGTH TODAY.”

The shorter skeleton pauses in the middle of his scribbling - she sees the abrupt lack of motion from the corner of her eye - but she’s too confused to really pay attention. “I will?”

Papyrus blinks politely down at her. “WHY - OF COURSE!” he exclaims. “I KNOW THAT YOUR, AH... _FEELINGS_ FOR ME MUST HAVE DRIVEN YOU BACK TO SNOWDIN.” The skeleton’s cheeks become tinged with a bit of orange. “BUT AS WE ARE NOTHING BUT THE BEST OF PLATONIC FRIENDS, THEN SURELY YOU WILL BE RETURNING TO YOUR TASK OF MEETING ASGORE AFTER WE ARE FINISHED HANGING OUT TODAY!” Papyrus squints at her again. “WON’T YOU?”

The fork she hadn’t realized she’d picked up slips out of her fingers, landing in the spaghetti with hardly a sound. She doesn’t miss the way Sans’ eyes have flickered back over to her, just visible over the newspaper he is holding in front of him.

The game is waiting to be finished. Meeting Asgore, freeing the Underground...it’s what she has been doing since as long as she can remember, since first falling down here. It’s what she’s _suppose_ to do, isn’t it? Lingering around here...won’t change anything. It won’t solve anything. The only way to... _progress_ , is to move forward.

That unending darkness, the continuous fall down the hole...

It’s what her life means.

It’s what she’s _suppose_ to do.

...Right?

“...” she says, a wheezing squeak of air, and Papyrus’ expression grows concerned as he leans over towards her.

“HUMAN! HAS MY AMAZING BREAKFAST SPAGHETTI OVERWHELMED YOUR SENSES? DON’T TRY TO SPEAK WHILE YOU ARE BASKING IN ITS INDESCRIBABLE TASTE!”

“No,” she blurts out, more firmly now, and both Papyrus and Sans recoil a bit from the forceful tone of voice. A small part of her wants to be embarrassed, but a much larger part of her is demanding that she climb up to the top of the roof and scream the word as loud as she is able. “I mean - no, I don’t...I don’t want to meet him, yet.”

And then to avoid answering any more questions, she picks her fork back up and sticks a mouthful of spaghetti into her mouth. The assault on her taste buds has her face immediately scrunching upwards.

“NO?” Papyrus questions, absentmindedly twirling another mouthful for himself. “BUT YOU SEEMED SO ADAMANT YESTERDAY TO MAKE IT TO NEW HOME...ARE YOU FEELING ALRIGHT, FRISK?” The skeleton pauses, before suddenly rounding on Sans so quickly that the shorter monster actually jerks back in surprise. “HAS SANS INFECTED YOU WITH HIS TERRIBLE _LAZINESS?!”_

“hey, bro,” Sans tries, newspaper dropping onto the table so he can raise both hands in a placating gesture, “no need for the ana- _lazy_ -ing, heh. she’s probably just, ‘ya know...tired, is all.”

Papyrus is still giving Sans a suspicious glare, so she decides to cut in. “Yeah, I’m just tired Papy,” she says, and the skeleton’s glare immediately turns concerned in her direction. “I’m just gonna...wait. For a bit.”

The skeleton hums once under his breath before he is mollified, returning to his spaghetti. “HMM. WELL IF YOU ARE SURE, THEN...HUMAN! PREPARE YOURSELF FOR IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF COOL DUDE, UTTERLY PLATONIC, FRIEND ZONING!”

The words, entirely new with tinges of a line she has heard a thousand times before, prompts a giggle from her mouth before she’s even aware of it. It surprises her.

When was the last time she giggled?

Sans has no such problems and chuckles fully, resting his head against one hand as he returns his attention to the newspaper. “yup,” he says, with a _pop!_ on the ending. “you’re gonna have a great time kid, _bar_ none.”

Papyrus’ head whips around again with a bug-eyed glare, but before he can reprimand Sans for the nice cream bar he seemingly pulled out of nowhere, his eyes fall to the newspaper. The bug-eyed look is replaced with one of wonderment.

“SANS!” the skeleton exclaims, leaning forward, “YOU’RE DOING THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE?”

Half the nice cream bar is sticking out of Sans’ mouth, but he taps his pen against the newspaper in an affirmative sort of manner.

“STILL UNPREPARED FOR THE CLEARLY SUPERIOR JUNIOR JUMBLE, BROTHER,” Papyrus sighs, but the wonderment hasn’t left his face. “I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE DONE WITH THESE EASY-PEESY CROSSWORD PUZZLES. YOU DIDN’T DO THE ONE IN YESTERDAY’S NEWSPAPER!”

“i _was_ done,” is the easy reply, only slightly muffled by the rapidly disappearing nice cream, “now i’m not.” The shorter skeleton pauses to mark something down in the crossword, his grin widening slightly. “new day, new puzzle, right?”

“REALLY SANS,” Papyrus says exasperatedly, shaking his head. “CLEARLY YOUR LAZINESS REACHED A PEAK OF INSURMOUNTABLE UNCOOL YESTERDAY. THE VERY DAY WE MET MY NEW BEST FRIEND!” The skeleton’s eyes narrow. “HOW CAN I PROPERLY DISPLAY THE COOL LEVELS BEFITTING A BEST FRIEND WITH YOU BOONDOGGLING ABOUT EVERYWHERE?”

“don’t worry about it, paps. i bet it’s too much to _wrapper_ head around, anyways.” The nice cream bar wrapper goes sailing overhead, landing smoothly in the trash bin without Sans breaking eye contact with the newspaper.

She just barely catches the twitching eye, which is how she manages to save her plate of spaghetti before Papyrus flips the entire table. Breakfast is finished on the floor, afterwards, but even as Papyrus grumbles and Sans winks and spaghetti ends up somehow getting tangled in her hair, she can feel nothing except the wild pounding in her Soul.

Because it feels, abruptly, as if she is breaking all the rules, and getting away with it.

 

* * *

 

She gets to live peacefully in Snowdin for roughly a week, not thinking of anything at all really, when her worst fear comes to life.

That is, she walks back home from Grillby’s with Sans in tow, and finds Asgore sitting on the couch beside Papyrus.

“Howdy,” the goat monster says, in a voice as guileless and innocent as she remembers, but she is too busy staggering back against the open doorframe. It is only Sans’ hand on her shoulder that keeps her upright, but she is too focused on the goat monster to really notice anything else.

Her flinch is apparently not what he is expecting though, because Asgore’s expression turns contrite as both he and Papyrus surge upwards in concern. “Wait, little one,” he calls out, “please do not be afraid. I am not here to harm you.”

“FEAR NOT, HUMAN,” Papyrus exclaims, “I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL PROTECT YOU! EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE IN NO NEED OF PROTECTION, BECAUSE THE KING IS...A GIANT TEDDY BEAR! HE ONLY WISHES TO TALK TO YOU!”

There are a thousand and one things she can say to that, and all of them sound just somewhat insane in her mind.

But surprisingly, she doesn’t need to. “yeah, not gunna happen,” Sans drawls, stepping slightly in front of her even as he lazily jerks his head in semblance of a nod towards the goat monster. “sup asgore.”

“Sans,” Asgore says blankly, still looking at her. “Ah, I know this must seem very sudden, but I had heard of a human child here in Snowdin and I - ” The goat monster cuts himself off. The tiny rivulets of blood are more visible on his forehead. One even runs all the way down the side of his snout.

“I simply wish to speak with the human child.”

“no offense your majesty,” Sans says, hands held loosely in his pockets. For all the casual tone and pose, she feels a tension in the skeleton’s voice. A warning. As if Sans so definitively wants to keep her away from Asgore as much as she herself wants to hold off that fatal encounter. “but i’m thinking there’s another reason for this _soul_ -icitation, heh.”

Both Asgore and Papyrus’ faces scrunch upwards at the pun, and honestly, she doesn’t think it’s very funny either. If she could have stopped the repeats by giving up her Soul, she would have done it long ago. But she won’t give it up now.

Asgore eventually hums underneath his breath, eyeing the skeleton. “No, there is no other reason, Sans. Whether you believe me or not.” There is a tinge of...sadness?...in the goat monster’s voice, and for a moment Sans actually looks a bit ashamed. But then he tenses as the King stands up from the couch, pauses - and stretches.

“I should have brought some tea,” the goat monster muses underneath his breath, before he shakes his head and gestures into the kitchen. He himself leads the way, settling his large frame onto a chair and looking comically out of place, before folding his paws on the table and staring expectantly at her.

She really should just run out of the house screaming. Instead, she spends the next hour talking to the goat monster.

Said hour borders just shy of dull.

Asgore asks her some polite questions (her name, where she is from, how did she get here) to which she answers in equally polite tones (Frisk, the surface, fell down a hole). He seems very confused, wondering why she has not come to see him like all the other children had journeyed to do, and she shrugs and says she simply didn’t want to.

He doesn’t at all seem offended by her lack of interest in meeting him, and does look, in fact, relieved.

At one point he comments on the beauty of her golden flower mark and doesn’t comment on the way she stills and glances furtively at the dust that sprinkles the flowers on her hands, instead musing on whether or not they might have some golden flower tea (they don’t, but Papyrus serves some spaghetti flavored tea that is...surprisingly good, actually).

All in all, it is a very boring hour.

Asgore leaves as quietly as he had appeared, and even invites her to the palace for some delicious golden tea. She still has that urge to scream _no_ from the rooftops, but there is something in the monster’s gaze that gives her pause. It’s the way he stares at her - sadness and regret mingling with confusion and uncertainty, all of it riding underneath a quiet sort of joy and bittersweet remembrance.

Once upon a time, Asgore used to be a father.

She remembers staring up at the large doorway and dreading the final encounter that signaled the beginning of the beginning, a return to the golden flower bed, and how she’s come to associate that with the goat monster himself.

She wonders if Asgore feels the same way about her. She hasn’t forgotten the times she’d told him she was tired of dying, answered only by an equally tired nod of resignation.

She wonders if he’s ever stared at the doorway, dreading the shadow of an approaching human.

But even as she hears Sans let out a breath beside her and Papyrus loudly runs to the computer to brag online about a visit from the King, all she can do is stare at the closed doorway, and feel her heart beating in her chest.

Once again, she is almost giddy with it, the sense of wrong-doing that feels so utterly _right._ She met Asgore, and...

The world isn’t falling apart. She’s not falling back down a giant hole. She isn’t following the script.

And she thinks she could very well get used to this.

 

* * *

 

“You still hanging out with these dorks, Frisk? You should come hang out at my house, it’s all fixed up! We can make some more spaghetti!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says in answer, but Undyne waves a negligent hand in the air. She looks rather cute in a puffy jacket and earmuffs, and doesn’t seem overly bothered by the snow.

“It’s not a good idea, it’s a _great_ idea,” the fish monster asserts, grinning wildly as Papyrus sticks his head out of the window of his home. “Then we can come back here and FIGHT these guys...with food! And giant robots!”

“AND THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!”

“That’s right! Smother your enemies with love until they cry out in surrender...and pain! Ngaaaah!”

“NYEH HEH HEEEEH!”

She leaves them to their battle cries as the nearby monsters playing in the snow all take definitive steps away from Sans’ and Papyrus’ house, though none of them look particularly alarmed at the brewing kitchen battle. Well used to Undyne stopping at the brothers’ home, apparently.

Instead of getting drawn into the faux battle, she goes wandering across Snowdin to let her thoughts wander. She has become settled in enough to not go completely light-headed with this small rebellion of hers, but it is still a near miss as Bun-Bun waves at her passing by, sweater pulled up to her chin.

It’s been a month now. An entire month of lingering in Snowdin.

It still takes her ages to fall asleep at night, and once or twice she had crawled into bed with Papyrus or Sans, clung to them so tightly she was sure they’d kick her out. But each time she had fallen asleep and woken up in the same bed with the same skeleton wrapping her in a comforting embrace, and each false sunrise brought with it a new day.

It makes her wonder why she never thought to try this before. Try simply...not finishing the game.

Maybe because she had always believed that a game needed a happy ending. That it had been her destiny, her life, to endure an endless amount of repeated games. But no more. She’s not going to seek out Asgore, she’s not going to finish playing this game. Maybe it will stop working eventually, and she’ll wake back up in a bed of golden flowers...

But for now, she will take what she can get. The lingering presence that pushes her to finish the game remains a dark afterthought, neatly tucked away for her convenience, but every once in a while it surfaces again, brushing across her back in stilted waves.

If she never finishes the game...will the game come to finish her?

It’s a chilling thought, but she firmly pushes it to the back of her mind yet again as she enters Grillby’s.

As expected, Sans is easily spotted in the light crowd. He’s sitting in one of the booths, absently working at a bottle of ketchup. In front of him lies the day’s newspaper, and unsurprisingly, he holds a pen in one hand, tapping it against the table. He appears to be concentrating on the newspaper, but he seems to immediately notice her as she walks near, grin wide on his face.

“heya frisk,” he greets, eyes following her movements as she climbs onto the booth opposite him, “what’s up? you’re uh, looking a little _fishy_ there, buddy.”

“Undyne,” is all she says in explanation, though she probably hadn’t needed to considering the pun. Sans makes a sympathetic sound in the back of his throat in any case, and slides his basket of fries over the table towards her.

“was wondering when she was gonna show up,” he remarks placidly, grinning at her from over the table as she grabs at one fry. “if i were you kid, i’d make myself scarce for a few days.”

She smiles but doesn’t comment, because it feels kind of nice to have the two monsters figuratively (and sometimes literally) fighting for her time. She’d certainly never had any of the other orphans fighting to play with her, once upon a time.

“but hey, that’s just me buddy,” Sans continues, reclining back against the booth as he swipes one of the fries for himself. “dunno about you, but uh, personally? i think their little dates are pretty _fry-_ tening, heh.”

She giggles lightly as she reaches for another fry, glancing down and letting the quiet spiral between them. The dusty flowers on her hands look the same as ever, and though no one has ever commented on them except to exclaim what a beautiful Soul Seal she has, she still pulls the sleeves of her sweater down a bit.

“Thanks,” she blurts out all at once. Sans waves a hand in the air, and it takes her a moment to realize he thinks she is thanking him for the fries. “No, I mean...thanks for letting me...you know. Stay here, for a bit.”

The skeleton blinks, one eyebrow raising as he studies her. “eh, forgeddaboutit. nothing wrong with taking a break or two, pal.” Sans grins and taps one finger against his cheek. “no _bones_ about it.”

She stills as Sans returns to his crossword puzzle, eyeing his cheek. The bone-shaped Soul Seal looks the same as it always has.

Once, he had joked that a lazybones like himself only had the one mark. She wonders if it still holds true. Granted, it’s only been a month for the skeleton (and a lifetime for herself), but there is something about Sans that has felt...more active, this past month. He is still lazy and sleeps a lot, yet there is a newfound energy about it. He seems to take more of an active interest in the going-ons around him, up to and including doing the crossword in the newspaper every single day.

It’s almost as if something happened, that day she firmly decided against meeting Asgore. Maybe she’s shifted the game so dangerously off its course that it has spread across all the monsters, even if they don’t realize it. She doesn’t know.

But she wonders if he has a new Soul Seal, somewhere.

“anyways,” Sans speaks up, breaking her out of her thoughts, “don’t worry about it, kid, take as long of a break you want.” He pauses, eyes flicking up and towards the front door of Grillby’s. “because, well...buddy?”

She raises an eyebrow as he throws her a wink.

“i think you’ve been un- _dyne_ for one.”

She barely has time to process the pun as Sans ducks under the table, just before the door to Grillby’s bursts open.

“Frisk!” Undyne roars, and has her in a headlock and is dragging her out the door before she can fully process the abrupt transition, “gotcha! Hah! I captured you, so _we_ get to hang out today. Suck it, bonehead!”

Whatever competition had been going on had somehow ended with Papyrus’ upper body wedged into the Christmas Tree, but the skeleton appears as confident as ever as Undyne whisks her by. “VERY WELL, GOOD FRIENDS! I WILL PROCEED TO SUCK IT AS SOON AS I FREE MYSELF, IN PREPARATION FOR IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF DELICIOUS SPAGHETTI DINNER! I WILL BRING THE CAPES!”

“And I’ll bring the japes!” Undyne calls out over her shoulder, for they are already making their way into the tunnel that separates Snowdin from Waterfall.

She is dropped just inside the cool cavern, and the fish monster wastes no time shedding her protective jacket and earmuffs, carelessly flinging them over Sans’ sentry station. “Ngaah, that’s better,” Undyne comments as she stretches her arms above her head. She is wearing her blank tank top and jeans again. “Dunno why you punks like playing around in snow when we’ve got all this refreshing water here. And Waterfall’s got the best boulders, too!”

“Playing in the snow is fun,” she says offhandedly. Undyne makes a noncommittal grunt but continues leading the way to her home, which gives her time to stare at the fish monster. The splashes of color against the blue skin draw her eye, even after all this time.

It’s been...a long time since she’s really thought of Life Marks, she feels.

A thrill runs up her spine as she studies the marks - once upon a time, Life Marks had been all she’d been able to think about, and look how well that had turned out for her - but she’d never really had a chance to look at Undyne’s. Those hangout sessions had always been filled with nerves and tension on her part, facing across from the monster that had killed her more times than all of the others combined. The same one that threw a spear at the table with the same ease she’d thrown a spear into her stomach. Cataloguing the fish monster’s Life Marks had always been the least of her concerns, back in those days.

But now that she’s allowing herself to really look at them - now that she is neither rushing through the Underground or too nervous around the monster - she finds she can’t help it, because Undyne’s marks are unlike any she has seen before.

Most Life Marks and Soul Seals, from what she’s been able to tell, are vague and symbolic, rather than distinct images. She tends to think of them as pictures, but it’s not as if most marks look like photographs that have been painted onto a person’s skin. More often than not, marks are either simplistic and singular, or vague and shapeless. Handprints layered one over another and a splash of red against an arm, rather than a picturesque meadow filled with flowers underneath a blue sky.

Not Undyne’s, though. Undyne’s Life Marks are distinct and forceful, with entire _landscapes_ painted across her skin.

There is a white dog settled on top of the knuckles of one hand, and a tree branch spread over the opposite shoulder, filled with pink flower buds and framed against a brilliantly blue sky. An entire riverbank is barely visible on her right leg where her jeans are pulled up. And exposed on her back underneath the tank top are white wings, and a familiar looking symbol - she thinks she can make out the top of a square, or a triangle - that are etched out of glass, a glass window painted with such detail that she almost feels she is staring out of one of the windows in Judgement Hall.

She wants to keep looking, but Undyne has apparently had enough. “Hey, quit staring, you punk,” she requests not so gently, but there is a thread of hesitance in the normally confident and boisterous voice. Undyne sounds and looks genuinely embarrassed at her blatant interest in the Life Marks. Monsters don’t have qualms about sharing their marks, but maybe there is a certain level of polite interest that can cross into intrusiveness.

She hasn’t looked or asked about a monster’s Soul Seals in such a long time. 

“They look really cool,” she offers, in an attempt to ward off the awkwardness and make up for her monster social blunder. It works, if the way Undyne’s face lights up is any indication.

“Hell yeah they do!” Undyne roars, loud enough to cause the cavern walls to shake, and any hesitation is now gone from the monster’s face. “They’re totes rad, because _I’m_ totes rad, see?”

And that is the cue for Undyne to take a sudden running leap, diving headfirst into a nearby boulder with a resounding “ngaaaaah!” It immediately explodes upon impact, shattering into fragments of pebbles and debris, and she is vaguely aware that her mouth is gaping open like a -

Well. Like a fish, she supposes. She didn’t know she had the ability to be surprised by anything in the Underground anymore.

“Hah!” The fish monster gets back onto her feet and brushes her hands together, pride clear on her features as she swivels back around towards her. “Now _that’s_ what I’m talking about! Did I get anything new?!”

She startles, peering at the monster’s forehead - and almost flinches back, because there actually _is_ a new mark on Undyne’s forehead. But then the monster shakes her head once, and the remnants of the boulder fall away from her face.

Undynde frowns as she rubs at her forehead, and she stills. That long forgotten part of her that had been obsessed with getting Life Marks - before she’d starting getting sprinkles of dust imprinted into her skin - aches with sympathy, sharply remembering the searing disappointment of expecting a new mark and ending up with nothing. She wonders if Undyne will be disappointed, now.

But the moment passes, and Undyne simply shrugs.

“Eh, whatever,” the fish monster says eloquently, grinning down at her. “That boulder was way too small anyways - let’s go find some bigger ones and pound ‘em! With our faces!”

That is apparently enough incentive for the monster as Undyne continues stalking down the tunnel, leading her out of Waterfall, but her brain is struggling to play catch up.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she questions as she runs to catch up with Undyne’s long legs, and at the fish monster’s incredulously raised eyebrow, she tries to explain. “I mean - not your forehead. But I mean, you did something so cool, but you didn’t get any Seal...” Words fail her again as she gestures towards the ground. “Doesn’t it...bother you?”

“Eh?” Undyen says eloquently, looping her arms behind her head as they walk. The fish monster’s face scrunches upwards in contemplation. “Hell no, human. Why would it?”

Why?

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, fiddling with her stick. “Because you...you wanted one, right? A nice one? And you didn’t get one.”

“Pfft. Doesn’t matter!”

“But - ”

“Listen, human,” Undyne interrupts, reaching down to give her a (relatively) light smack to the top of her head. “You don’t just get experience by _wanting_ it _,_ you dum-dum. That’s stupid! Part of being totally cool is being totally cool when you’re not even _trying_ to be totally cool. _That’s_ the coolest!”

She’s starting to realize exactly where Papyrus gets it from, but she’s mostly trying to figure out if Undyne’s said what she thinks she’s just said. “When you’re not even trying?...”

“That’s right! If everyone just got marks all the time ‘cause they wanted ‘em - that’d be super _boring,_ you dork, and - hah!”

The sudden shout makes her startle out of her contemplation, but Undyne doesn’t pat attention, only thrusts one pointed finger out towards a beautiful pair of boulders, excitement clear on her face. “Time for that rematch, human! First one to suplex _wins!”_

 

* * *

 

Undyne ends up winning, but that’s hardly a surprise to anyone, except the mama boulder who attempts to flatten Undyne until the fish monster finally sets her husband back down.

But watching a boulder chase around Undyne carrying another boulder overhead gives her time to think, and to calculate.

So maybe the secret is one that she’s known all along, but has just been too impatient to really see. Maybe Ms. Foster had been right, from the very beginning. Maybe it’s less about trying to get more Life Marks to appear, and more about simply...living. And stop worrying about them.

‘Okay,’ she decides. ‘I’ll try living.’

 

* * *

 

Things are peaceful at the skeletons’ house, the three of them watching one of Mettaton’s programs coming to an end.

So of course Sans has to go and ruin it.

“...welp,” Sans suddenly remarks in the silence of the living room, “that was a meta- _ton_ of work. i’m going to grillby’s.”

Papyrus’ response is immediate. “YOU LAZYBONES, ALL WE DID WAS SIT AND BOONDOGGLE AT THE TELEVISION. AND YOU _REALLY_ SHOULD TRY TO EAT MORE HEALTHILY.” The taller skeleton crosses his arms and looms over Sans, eyes narrowed threateningly. The pale blue sparkles on the side of his skull glitter in the lamplight. “WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD A NUTRITIOUS AND DELICIOUS HELPING OF FRIENDSHIP SPAGHETTI?”

“last night, bro, remember?”

“SANS! CHOCOLATE AND BANANA DESERT SPAGHETTI IS NOT VERY NUTRITIOUS!”

“but you cooked it for us, paps,” Sans says, in a voice that is too innocent to be fully sincere. “and it _was_ delicious.”

“WELL, YES,” Papyrus says, mollified, “THAT IS INDEED TRUE - ”

“it was real _sweet_ of ‘ya.”

Papyrus goes ramrod still, eyes slowly beginning their bulging pattern, and Sans takes the opportunity to slip behind him. She barely catches sight of a wink and finger gun before she blinks, and Sans is gone, probably through one of his shortcuts.

She giggles, and Papyrus immediately grimaces. “HUMAN, YOU _MUST_ PROMISE ME TO RENOUNCE ALL PUNS AND TERRIBLE JOKES BEFORE YOU REACH ADULT SIZE,” the skeleton beseeches, “ELSE YOU WILL END UP CORRUPTED LIKE MY LAZYBONES BROTHER.”

“Sorry Papy,” she apologizes, staring at the spot Sans disappeared from. Something light, something mischievous is rising inside her, a playfulness that she thought she’d lost after falling down into the Underground. She’d forgotten she’d had it for a long while, but lately she’s found it begrudgingly, painstakingly, coming back.

Slowly, she turns back around towards Papyrus. “I guess I was just...”

She can see him realize what is about to happen just a hair too late, eyes widening in slow motion as he manages to let out one feeble, whispered _“NO.”_

“ - _bone_ to be wild.”

“NYEEEEH!” Papyrus wails, snatching her up and crushing her to his chest. She is still short enough that he lifts her completely off the ground, though perhaps not as freely as he once did. “FRISK! STAY CALM! I PROMISE I WILL CURE YOU OF MY BROTHER’S CORRUPTING INFLUENCE!”

She laughs again and hugs Papyrus, gleeful even though he is hugging her out of desperation and despair. But the movement suddenly brings something to her attention, and she pauses.

“Papyrus...what’s that?”

“EH?” He sets her back on the floor to look over himself, but it is only after she points towards his neck does he seem to realize what she’s asking. “AH! YOU MEAN MY SOUL SEAL OF COMPLETE COOLNESS? CHECK IT!” Papyrus crows, and the red scarf comes off with a flourish.

Like with all his marks, it is a little difficult to put the completed picture together due to the gaps between bones, but the simplistic looking human with little white wings on its back is clear enough on his collarbone. It is very small, competing for space with all the hundred other marks that cover the colorful skeleton.

She has never seen that mark before, she is certain of it. She’s spent enough lifetimes cataloguing and observing every monster’s Life Marks to know that she has never seen it.

“Is that...new?”

Papyrus nods proudly, running a gloved hand over the mark. “INDEED, HUMAN! I RECEIVED IT ONLY LAST WEEK!” The skeleton’s expression turns gleeful, eyes glittering. “REMEMBER? WE MADE SNOW ANGELS IN THE SNOW!...AND THEN IN THE MUD IN WATERFALL. AND _THEN_ IN THE SNOW AGAIN!”

Oh, she remembered. She’d paid for that bit of stupidity with a few days of bedrest and chicken noodle spaghetti soup.

“It’s really pretty,” she comments, and braces herself for it, but there is no sharp spike of envy. Maybe it’s because she long ago made peace with her cursed Life Marks, that she no longer feels that yearning want whenever she sees another’s marks.

Now, she is simply glad the flowers on her hands have not gotten any dustier.

“BUT OF COURSE!” Papyrus agrees, “ITS PRETTINESS IS A MATCH FOR MY IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF COOL! AND SO IS THIS ONE!”

She leans over to look at his right arm obligingly, looking at the - they look like two blobs of white at first, but the pattern on the top one makes her sit up in recognition. “Is that - ”

“YOUR SNOWHUMAN, HUMAN!” Papyrus exclaims proudly. “A VERY VALIANT FIRST ATTEMPT, THOUGH OF COURSE IT COULDN’T COMPARE TO THE UTTER COOL OF MY OWN - ”

“Wait wait,” she pleads, head reeling slightly as she gets a closer look at the mark. That is undeniably the snowman Papyrus had helped her build during her very first week lingering in Snowdin, right in the middle of his own brilliant snowman and Sans‘ pile of snow. The stick that compromises her mouth in a deadpanned line makes it clear. “You got...you got a Soul Seal from _that?”_

Because...well, she’s flattered and all, but it seems so strange that a playdate with Papyrus had had enough of an effect on him to result in a new mark. And not just one playdate - _two_ of them. When they’d done nothing more than roll around in snow and mud, and build snowmen together.

Papyrus looks even more surprised than her. “WELL...YES, I DID,” he says, and then adds brightly, “YOU’RE LIKE A GOOD LUCK CHARM, HUMAN. A VERY SQUISHY, FLESHY CHARM! I THINK THE ONLY TIME I’VE GOTTEN SO MANY AT ONCE IS WHEN - ”

And he’s off, pulling at one boot to showcase the reeds on his right leg bone, looking completely out of place next to the stars and the river of molten lava that try to occupy the same space. She is aware that she has a slightly disbelieving look on her face, but she listens as Papyrus goes over every single Life Mark, one by one.

All of them.

For the next several hours she simply sits and listens to Papyrus as he points them out, talks about the first time Undyne ever gave him a one-armed hug, that time when he played hide-and-seek in Waterfall and was caught because his foot was hanging out of the reeds, the first snowball fight he and Sans had in Snowdin, which he had, of course, naturally won, being the cool skeleton he is.

Sans had apparently only managed to lob one snowball at the side of his skull before getting tired.

There is a common theme to all of them, it seems. Making friends, being with friends...having friends. Every single one. And no detail is spared in their retelling - how he got it, when he got it, who he was with, what he was doing. Everything is spoken of in vivid detail and memory.

It should be impossible. Life Marks fade with age, as events and details became less important, or are forgotten.

They mark the most defining moments in a person’s life, and now she thinks she finally understands why Papyrus has so many marks, hundreds of marks that compete for attention on the surface of his bones.

She reaches out as he continues talking, brushing one hand against the small, lopsided snowman on his right arm. She reaches out with golden flowers coating her fingers, and takes only vague note of the barest hints of tanned skin underneath.

 

* * *

 

The days bleed together, and she has stopped bothering to keep track. There is no point - not because she is resigned to a repeating pattern of events, but because she is living.

That includes gratuitous amounts of spaghetti, boulder suplexing, and anime, in no particular order - only some a little more than most.

“G-gosh,” Alphys says wonderingly, eyes transfixed on the small television. “That’s s-so true, I never e-even noticed.”

Privately, she thinks it’s a little bit ironic to be providing commentary on Mew Mew’s Life Marks as if she’s any expert, but Alphys had been insistent, and she thinks she’s done a pretty good job.

“She uses her powers to defend her friends, not to attack,” she extrapolates amusedly, as they watch Mew Mew proudly brandish her magic wand. The movement stretches out her arm, along with the shield painted on it that has that same wand emblazoned onto its surface. “That’s why it’s on same arm as her wand hand.”

“Wow,” the lizard monster breathes, chopsticks slipping dangerously from her grasp. She reaches over and fixes Alphys’ grip without the monster even noticing. “You’re so r-right, I never even t-thought of it like that. A-all this time I t-thought her Life Mark m-meant that Mew Mew was h-hiding behind her powers.”

“Well,” she considers, “that could be it too. It just depends on how you look at it.”

“Still, I like y-your interpretation better,” Alphys admits, stirring her cup ramen with the chopsticks. “It makes Mew Mew even more a-awesome! She’s so p-pretty and heroic and wonderful, but a-all she wants is to p-protect her friends...” The lizard monster sighs dreamily, eyes slightly vacant. “She’s so amazing...”

She has the sneaking suspicion that Alphys is no longer strictly talking about Mew Mew, but she doesn’t bother pointing it out. Alphys’ skin does it quite clearly on its own.

“She’s not the only one,” she says instead, and nudges Alphys left arm where vibrant blue fish are swimming in chaotic patterns up her forearm and onto her shoulder, dashing in and out between the blooming cherry blossom branches that are a match to those on a different monster.

Ever too bashful to take a compliment, Alphys simply ducks her head and blushes and demures. “I-I’m not _nearly_ as awesome as Mew Mew,” she claims, but then she peeks up between her lashes and adds, “n-not like _you.”_

Alphys has never given up on that image of an anime heroine, even though she’s tried her best to dissuade it. Still she tries again. “I’m not anything like Mew Mew either,” she says, and she means it.

Mew Mew is heroic and brave and never takes the easy path, no matter what troubles she is facing.

But Alphys is having none of it. “Yes, you are!” the lizard monster exclaims, just like she’s always done, “you’re a-amazing and so kind and an a-awesome f-friend and that’s why I - and t-that’s why I, u-uhm...”

The sudden spike in nerves is near palatable, so much so that she frowns and squints at the other monster who has abruptly become so red that she looks in danger of overheating. “Alphys? What’s wrong?”

“I...” The monster hesitates, ramen completely forgotten as Alphys clutches at her wrist. Directly over the bowl of grey ice cream and the two distinct spoons stuck into it. “I got...s-something...”

“Something?” she prompts slowly.

Alphys squeaks and buries her head in her hands, and doesn’t look interested in saying anything more. She frowns and leans closer. “Alphys, what’s the ma - ”

_“I got something to match!”_

She actually leans backwards with the force of the embarrassed scream, and Alphys looks completely distraught afterwards. For what reason, she has no idea, but Alphys is acting as if her admission is the end of the world. She should probably be gentle, even if she is confused.

“That’s...great?” she settles on saying. It appears to be the right thing to say, because Alphys sighs in relief, and in fact, now looks more admiring than anything else.

“R-really?” the lizard monster exclaims, “oh thank Asgore, I mean I r-really wasn’t sure if you’d be o-okay with it, I thought it might be k-kind of, uh. Cringey? B-but once I saw it,” the burble of words continues, even as Alphys reaches into her pocket for something, “I t-thought it’d be such a _k-kawaii_ idea to get matching, s-so I...”

The pink and purple leather bracelet Alphys pulls out is familiar looking, and it takes her a moment to figure out why. It is an exact match to the bracelet Mew Mew wears when she’s not transformed, a bracelet that she and her group of friends all have copies of. They mash their fists together in a circle if they all transform at the same time.

In a moment, Alphys’ extreme nervousness becomes clear, though she isn’t sure why the lizard monster still feels this way. After all this time, surely she doesn’t think she’ll be made fun of for making a matching bracelet of her favorite anime character? Maybe she was afraid of her running to Undyne to tell her what a huge nerd Alphys is?

As if that would even _bother_ Undyne. The fish monster would, probably, immediately set out to make as many friendship bracelets as possible so she could brag about having more friendship than anyone else.

“That’s awesome, Alphys,” she praises, “it looks just like it.” And the happy flush on the monster’s face grows exponentially as she slips the bracelet onto her yellow wrist.

“I’m s-so glad you like it,” the lizard monster says -

\- and then, bizarrely, she reaches over and knocks a fist against her own unresponsive hand. “K-kissy Cutie Friend Power!”

There is an undeniably awkward silence for a good five seconds, during which Alphys’ blush grows even more so. She doesn’t mean to make it awkward, but really, she thinks it’s entirely fair, because she has honestly completely missed something important. “Kiss - ”

“I’ll g-go get some more s-snail ice cream!” Alphys exclaims, jumping onto her feet, and soon enough her tail is disappearing down the stairs towards the kitchen.

She is left in silence, Mew Mew still tearfully expressing her love for her friends on the screen, and she continues to stare where Alphys had disappeared. She has no idea what just happened, only that the monster is insanely embarrassed over something. To think that Alphys is still embarrassed about loving anime, after all this time, is somewhat dumbfounding. With a frown, she turns back to the television and absently rubs at her wrist, glancing down towards it.

And pauses.

The golden flowers on her hands and all over her arms are not as constricting as they once were, even if they still flood all over the appendages. More and more patches of tanned skin are visible underneath them, including her left wrist.

And it is there, right there, underneath the myriad of golden flowers, that she sees the bracelet. A pink and purple leather bracelet wrapped snugly around her wrist, as if she is wearing one for her own.

_“I r-really wasn’t sure if you’d be o-okay with it, I thought it might be k-kind of, uh. Cringe? B-but once I saw it...”_

Once she saw it...how long has she had it? Since when did Alphys see it? Once, long ago, the sight would have made her question, and wonder, and speculate.

Now, she reaches out and caresses the skin of her wrist, and thinks of the bracelet Alphys now has dangling from her own hand.

 _Huh,_ she thinks. _Guess we have matching, too._

 

* * *

 

Sans and Papyrus’ house is becoming the site for unexpected events and surprises. It’s become a pattern at this point.

But that still doesn’t prepare her as she steps inside after saying goodbye to MK, only to see Toriel sitting on the couch.

There is an abrupt silence - Toriel’s laughter choking halfway, Sans’ chuckle falling away, and Papyrus’ grinding teeth gone to stillness. She herself is silent as well, staring at the familiar face that reminds her of so many things. Some good, some bad, and all of them remembered as if from a waking dream.

“uh, so...heya, kid,” Sans says, even as Toriel slowly stands from the couch, eyes wide and paws clenched in front of her. “remember when i told you ‘bout that old lady, behind the door? well...” The skeleton rubs a hand against the back of his neck, grin widening. “guess what i found today?”

“SANS, SHH,” Papyrus whispers very loudly, making a flapping motion with one hand. Or so she thinks - she sees it from her peripherals, because the rest of her vision is filled with dancing flames and tired eyes and colorful handprints. “CAN’T YOU SEE THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STARING CONTEST FILLED WITH LOVE?”

“really?” Sans answers glibly, and she vaguely sees the wink he sends towards the other skeleton. “i thought they were in the middle of a living room.”

 _“SANS_ , YOU _KNOW_ WHAT I MEAN!”

“relax, bro, i’m not gonna _contest_ your opinion.”

_“WOULD YOU JUST - ”_

“My child?”

The two skeletons break off, both looking mildly ashamed at their usual bickering, but Toriel is looking at nothing but herself, and she returns the favor. Though she has seen her face a thousand times, it feels as if she is looking at the goat monster completely anew, in this new game that has derailed so completely from the original script.

“My child,” Toriel repeats, and there is something like wondering awe in her voice as she takes a shuddering step forward. “It is I, Toriel. Do you...” The monster pauses to swallow and wet her lips. “Do you...remember me?”

How Toriel can even ask that question, she doesn’t know. But the monster waits for an answer anyways, so she gives one.

“Yeah,” she whispers. There are many more words she wants to say, too many of them. So she settles on the simplest. “Hi Mom.”

They both break at seemingly the same time, then, and before she knows it she is being enveloped in a familiar hug. There are a few tears streaming down her face, and from above she can here Toriel’s sobbing laughter, but she deigns to look herself, and instead presses her noses into the fur of Toriel’s neck, and stays there for a while.

Eventually, they manage to part enough to settle onto the couch, sitting within arm’s reach of one another. Sans and Papyrus make a move as if to leave them in private, but Toriel stops them, insistent on them remaining in their own home.

“And soon we will be out of your hair,” the goat monster says, and pauses to giggle. “That is, if you had any.”

“think you’ve got that covered for the both of us, lady,” Sans teases, and there is a fondness shining in his eyes as he looks at Toriel. It sits over an edge, however, one that she can only barely see - a tenseness as he glances between the two of them.

“Yes, I suppose so.” Toriel seems to mull over the statement for a moment, but just as quickly something changes in her eyes. “Frisk! Knock knock.”

Papyrus’ groan is immediate, and she gives Toriel her best deadpanned stare. She loves jokes and all, but the monster’s priorities could use some work. “Really?”

“Knock knock, my child.”

“Who’s there?”

“Hair.”

“Hair who?”

“Hairy up and tell me how you’ve been!”

“WHY MUST ALL YOUR SECRET DOOR FRIENDS BE SUCH HUGE DORKS!” Papyrus explodes in Sans’ general direction, even though the complaint seems directed at pretty much everyone in the room.

Sans shrugs in answer. “dunno,” he says, and winks at his brother. “but c’mon, bro, you’ve gotta admit. it’s pretty a- _dork-_ able.”

“I’ve been okay,” she cuts in, as the sound of Papyrus’ heavy breathing grows to a crescendo. Toriel reaches out to stroke at her shoulder, patiently attentive. “I decided to just...you know. Take my time? I’ve been staying here.”

“So I see,” Toriel muses, looking contemplative. Tears are filling her eyes again. “I am so relieved that you are well, Frisk. I was so certain you were gone, but when the spiders began whispering of a human living in Snowdin, I...I just...”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and leans over to wipe away her mother’s tears. The goat monster pats a paw against her knee, and she relishes in the warmth and love radiating from that palm. “For coming to get me.”

“Thanks! I should be thanking you, my child.” Toriel sneers, and the tear filled eyes harden into an expression she clearly remembers from a fire-filled hallway in front of a solemn arch. “You did not allow that...that pathetic _wretch_ to take your Soul from you - ”

“Mom, no,” she says firmly, stopping Toriel in that line of thought before she can fully voice it. From the corner of her eye she can see Sans and Papyrus crowded at the other end of the couch, watching, and probably holding themselves back from speaking out in defense of the King.

“He didn’t...he _doesn’t_ want my Soul,” she continues, “not anymore. I think he’s...” She trails off, because it feels like it’s been so long since she’s seen Toriel and she doesn’t want to risk offending the goat monster, but at the same time it’s been so long and she still clearly remembers the pain and fear and wear on Asgore’s face, standing before her with the weight of the Underground resting upon his shoulders. She remembers the burn marks along his right arm, as if his fire had burned too bright and ended up consuming him.

“I think he’s tired, too.”

Toriel sniffs in a disbelieving way, but she doesn’t immediately offer vitriol against the King in return. There are lingering hurts and pains, there, from both sides - ones that cannot be healed with just a few words.

They will take time, as do most things.

“Tired or not,” the goat monster eventually says, and she allows herself to be steered away from that topic, “you did well, my child, to protect your Soul.” Toriel exchanges a quick glance over one shoulder towards Sans, who winks at her. “And I am so happy to see you again.”

“Me too, Mom,” she murmurs, and they share yet another hug. They can share a hundred more, and she will gladly welcome her mother’s embrace each time.

But Toriel suddenly pulls back, holding her at arm’s length. “And look at you!” the goat monster exclaims, her voice threatening to choke up again. “You have grown so much, Frisk. I am sorry I could not see it.”

She...what?

“INDEED! SHE IS NO LONGER A TEENY TINY HUMAN,” Papyrus chimes in. “NOW SHE IS JUST A _TINY_ HUMAN! THE DIFFERENCE IN GROWTH IS...ACTUALLY QUITE SMALL.”

“you’re just saying that ‘cause you’re tall, paps,” Sans interjects lazily. “but from where i’m standing? she’s got- _teen_ a lot bigger.”

“THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE...AND YOU’RE LAYING ON THE _FLOOR_ , YOU LAZYBONES!”

Sans has, indeed, migrated to the floor, and the skeleton waves a negligible hand through the air to dispel that fact.

There is a giant question mark hanging just behind her head, but the conversation continues for a long while. She follows along for about an hour more, and then secures a break in the flow of talking as Papyrus breaks off to make dinner, and she excuses herself to use the bathroom upstairs. She walks through the door and stares into the mirror that she’s used every day since she started living in Snowdin.

She stares, and for once doesn’t let her eyes automatically skirt away.

It is her face, that is without question. Tanned skin, dark brown hair, and eyes squinted so close together that they almost seem completely shut in a deadpanned stare. Golden flowers coat her hands from underneath the sweater, and she instinctively knows if she should turn her back and lift up that same sweater, darkness would be there to greet her. It is the same.

And yet...

And yet.

It is not an eleven year old girl that looks back at her in the mirror. Not a girl, but not quiet a woman either. The figure in the mirror seems to straddle adulthood, with a growing maturity that still expresses youthfulness.

She places her hands on the countertop as she leans forward, and wonders at the fact that she can comfortably do so and no longer needs to stand on tip toes. It’s not as if...it’s not as if she’s grown up overnight or anything like that. Not that she feels she stood on her toes yesterday, and is now able to lean over the countertop today, more that she is suddenly aware that she’s been doing this for a long time, now.

It is...not quite _jarring,_ but more like _perplexing._ She stares her body down, then back up, and that is how she finds another person staring back at her from the mirror.

“time for a bit of self reflection, kid?”

She purses her lips, but deigns to comment as she reaches upwards, runs fingers down her cheek. Sans continues to lean against the open doorway, hands held lazily in his coat pockets.

“course, dunno what you’re complaining about. little bit longer and you’ll be passing me in leaps and _bones,”_ the skeleton chuckles, raising one hand to pass it over his head. She comes up to his chin now, she knows. “heh heh. i bet you’ll be - ”

“Sans,” she says, and he pauses, hand frozen in the air as she meets his gaze through the mirror.

“How long have I been here?”

Slowly, Sans returns his hand to the comfort of his pocket, and his shoulders relax and turn loose. Too loose, too casual. The skeleton shrugs, head turning downwards, and she instinctively knows that his eye sockets have gone entirely black.

“Sans.”

He shuffles a bit, still leaning against the doorframe, before he shrugs again, too nonchalant to be anything but. “couple years.” He briefly meets her eyes in the mirror, and glances back down again. “give or take.”

A couple of years, give or take.

She’s not sure why she bothered to ask when the answer stares her straight in the face, but hearing it said aloud solidifies the confirmation. And that confirmation should alarm her.

She...she never meant to spend this long in Snowdin. She’d only wanted to delay the inevitable for a while.

But now Toriel is back, and the goat monster is undoubtedly going to want to live together with her. And there isn’t enough space in the skeleton brother’s home, even _if_ they would have been okay with sharing said space. No, Toriel is going to ask her to move elsewhere...and neither of them have money.

There is only one other place Toriel will take her.

 _You can do it,_ she says, staring at the squinted eyes in the mirror. _You’ve done it before. You can live life._

She stopped letting the mark on her back define her life. It’s about time she stopped letting the darkened archway and pleasant humming from beyond do the same. She nods, pushes herself away from the countertop, and heads out the door. She is prepared.

What she is wholly unprepared for, however, is the arm that suddenly shoots outwards, hand slamming against the doorframe opposite.

She doesn’t rear backwards, not really, but she does lean a little, staring at the arm Sans is using to block her exit. His gaze is still turned downwards, but she can see the edges of his grin. It looks stretched and thin, not like his usual wide and careless smile.

“whatcha thinkin’ about, buddy,” he questions lightly, again with that air of nonchalantness that is completely betrayed by his body language. She can hardly believe that she used to find the skeleton difficult to read.

“I’m thinking that I should...start packing,” she answers, and ignores the way his body slacks, as if it is the answer he is expecting. “Mom will probably want to get settled as soon as possible, so...”

“so,” Sans finishes, one finger tapping against the doorframe. He hasn’t removed his arm. “that’s it, huh. just up and leave.”

“I’ll come visit,” she promises. “You and Papy. I’ll visit.”

Sans makes a curious sound, a half snort mixed with a breathy sort of chuckle. “or you could always, uh. well, you know. maybe not leave.”

She feels gratified, in a way, to know that Sans’ protectiveness of her has not abated in the years she’s been living here. Always lazy, always casual, but even he had never been able to hide his anxiousness whenever it came to herself and Asgore. It warms her, to know that someone dreads that fateful FIGHT as much as she does, even if he couldn’t possibly know the reason why she fears it so.

“Toriel will want to go,” she murmurs, and Sans...doesn’t quite _frown_ , but the downturn of his grin is obvious.

“last i checked, you’re not tori,” he tries, but she is already shaking her head as she pictures Toriel sitting alone in the Ruins, forgotten and swallowed whole by her guilt and pride.

“I’m not leaving her alone again, Sans.” It is not an option. “We’ll go soon. To...to New Home.”

Because they are both without money, and Toriel is too proud to take charity. After centuries of silence, there is only one place where the former Queen can make any sort of claim to ownership. She will march right into New Home and inform Asgore that they are now living there, and the old goat better not get any ideas about harvesting the Souls of innocent children.

Even though she is not a child, anymore. After a lifetime, she is no longer a child.

She hopes she doesn’t go back to being a child.

“Thanks for everything, Sans,” she says, and winces at how much of a final farewell that sounds, works to rectify it. “I’ll come back and visit as soon as we’re settled.” So said, she gently pushes Sans’ arm aside to continue making her way to the bedroom.

She gets all of two steps before her wrist is grabbed, skeletal bones wrapped tight around the golden flowers.

“frisk.”

She swallows, lets a million thoughts pass through her mind, but how can she explain. How can she _possibly_ explain that she refuses to hide in Snowdin any longer, to let Asgore’s darkened archway control her?

“don’t go.”

How can she explain that she is sick of dark abysses defining her, controlling her, marking her skin, her thoughts, her life?

“please.”

It is impossible to explain. She lets out a breath, and turns to meet Sans’ gaze.

The desperation that stares back at her catches the breath in her throat, a mirror image of the long-buried anxieties she’s fostered since the first time she woke back up on a bed of golden flowers - and for one wild moment she thinks, she thinks maybe he knows, maybe he’s known the whole time, could it be that she wasn’t the only one, he’s just as afraid as her that it’s all going to be -

_undone_

But the moment passes as he grins his usual grin, stretched only a bit too wide, playing it off with the same casualness as he plays off everything else, and the force of his gaze is suddenly too much for her to handle. She pulls her arm free and is off to Papyrus’ room, her temporary bedroom, and forcefully shuts the door behind her.

She is shaking, she realizes, and she flops ungracefully onto the bed, setting her hands on her knees. The expression that had been on Sans’ face...maybe he was right. Maybe this was a sign in the form of one lazybones skeleton, being uncharacteristically _not_ lazy as he pleaded with her not to go, not to go chasing her doom. She’d done fine all these years, after all, what did it matter if she avoided the Core and New Home like the plague? It didn’t matter.

And Toriel -

Toriel wouldn’t want to live with Sans and Papyrus. If she turned down the goat monster’s offer to move to the palace, Toriel would...would she go back to the Ruins, then? Back behind that unmoving, unyielding door?

She hates the thought of Toriel sitting in a lonely home with only the crackle of the fireplace to keep her company. She _hates_ it. But was she ready... _really_ ready to go to New Home? She doesn’t believe Asgore wants her Soul anymore...but would that _matter?_ Would the game somehow finish on its own?

Was she going to wake up in a bed of golden flowers tomorrow?

...Toriel will understand. Right? She is comfortable here, with the skeleton brothers, she has made a life here. Her mother will understand. She will just have to explain...after all, Sans was right, they didn’t _have_ to live together. And Toriel would -

She would go back to living in the Ruins. Alone.

She swallows against the dryness in her throat, before groaning and dropping her head into her hands. It was too much, too much to think about. She just has to make a choice and stick by it. She breathes in deeply to compose herself, nods, and starts to stand up.

And pauses, staring down at her left knee.

The white paw print is visible directly over the kneecap, vibrant and stark against her tanned skin. Most interestingly, however, is the center of the paw print - the circle that marks the inner pad is brilliantly red.

She thinks of warm fireplaces and a comforting weight against her back, of brilliant fires burning at her Soul and regret shining out from watery eyes. She thinks of a warm goat monster eagerly waiting for her to come down to dinner for some butterscotch cinnamon pie, hoping that she still doesn’t dislike the cinnamon.

She thinks of all this as she caresses the new Life Mark painting her skin, and against her will, the frantic beating of her heart calms to a steady _thump thump, thump thump, thump thump._

 

* * *

 

The large, looming doorway is exactly as she remembers it. For a long moment she can do nothing but stare upwards, feet frozen, paralyzed by indecision. A little voice inside her screams _No,_ and she almost listens to it and turns around.

But then...she is not alone this time.

Toriel catches up to her and slides a paw into one hand, startling her, and the goat monster takes the lead, pulling her inside before she can summon the words to protest.

The ensuing confrontation goes exactly as she pictured.

Asgore is, of course, simultaenously overjoyed and cowed by his former wife to do anything but hastily agree to Toriel’s _request_ for shelter. He would never even _dream_ of turning her away, exactly why Toriel felt confident enough to barge into the palace with herself in tow. In fact, Asgore is so focused on staring wistfully at Toriel that he doesn’t even notice her at first, until she shuffles around a bit and he finally takes note of her standing at the entranceway.

“Oh ho ho, hello little one,” he calls out joyfully, immediately putting Toriel on edge. “Have you finally come for some golden tea? I have a fresh pot brewing just in the other room - ”

“Asgore,” Toriel cuts in, causing the other goat monster to snap his lips shut, “you will not harm my child in anyway. Do you understand?” The fierce, indignant fire is back in her mother’s eyes, and that, more than anything, prompts her to finally move forward into the golden flowers, away from the archway. “You will _not.”_

“I - of course not,” Asgore says, wounded. He holds up a paw in entreatment, the burn marks vivid against his white fur. “I...I realize now that I was a fool, to let my anger cloud my judgement. I no longer wish to take human Souls.”

Toriel looks as if she is only partially listening - the vast focus of her attention seems to be on Asgore’s Soul Seal. Her own rage seems diminished, redirected, as she stares at the burn marks.

She can’t tell if Asgore has noticed the attention on the Seal, or if he is simply relieved that Toriel has not started burning his flowers. “Tori - ”

“We will take the west wing,” Toriel announces abruptly, causing Asgore to jerk backwards in surprise, but the former ignores him and turns back towards her. “Come, my child, let us settle in to our new home.”

“Y-yes,” Asgore blusters as they pass by, “yes of course. Anything you need.”

She lets out a breath she hadn’t even been aware she’d been holding as she passes by, but she can’t stop the smile that crosses over her face as they head down the corridor. That same, giddy feeling from years ago, when she’d first walked away from the archway, rises within her again. She is here, in Asgore’s palace with the goat king hesitantly following behind her, and instead of being pitted against Asriel and exiting the Barrier, she is...

Taking a tour of her new home.

It feels as if she is breaking all the rules, all over again.

The wing Toriel claims for them is a modest affair, reminiscent of the earlier wing they passed through to get here...the one that is an exact copy of Toriel’s Ruins home. Toriel immediately begins bustling about with a familiarity that is almost heartbreaking to watch, and she lingers in the living room with her single bag of clothing and possessions.

She lingers, and while she knows it is far too soon for a celebration, she revels in her victory over the blackness.

“Um...”

Asgore lingers as well, hovering in the doorway as if he wishes to make himself helpful but knows better than to force his help. If the look Toriel shoots him is any indication, it is a wise move, though as Asgore turns to her instead, she is the only one who sees the way the former Queen’s gaze drops to the burn marks yet again.

She is the only one who sees Toriel bite her lip.

“If you do not need any help settling in,” the King says hesitantly, smiling kindly down at her, “perhaps you would, ah. Care to join me for some tea?” There is an earnestness in his gaze, and she is all of a sudden struck by the thought of a large goat sitting alone in front of an empty fireplace, the monster Asgore forgotten and left behind in favor of The King responsible for freeing everyone from the Underground.

She remembers how she used to fear him so, how the very thought of seeing his face had filled her with terror.

She remembers how soft Asriel has always felt, hugging him in her arms.

Asgore lets out a muffled grunt, and she only barely hears Toriel’s startled gasp. But mostly, she focuses on how hard and unyielding the armor feels against her cheeks as she hugs the goat monster. She wonders if the monster underneath is as soft as his son.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For everything.”

There is a tiny sound from above her, a slight rumbling, and for a long moment she stands there as warm paws envelop her shoulders. Toriel is quiet behind them.

Until, at least, Asgore is the one to pull away first. “Yes, well,” he says, hoarsely, and has to clear his throat. Toriel lets out a light snort, but it sounds a bit friendlier...as far as snorts can be. “As I have said - anything you need. Anything at all.”

She nods once and releases him, and says, “I _would_ like some flower tea, if that’s okay.” It’s not as if she has a lot to unpack, after all.

Asgore _beams_ at her, a smile so wide it threatens to split his face. It is that smile that reminds her of something, then, something that makes her heart pulse in her chest, and before she even realizes it she is grasping onto Asgore’s cloak before he can leave.

“Actually,” she says, “now that you mention it...”

 

* * *

 

The welcoming party is thrown a week after they move in, and Asgore spares no expense. What used to be a solemn and regal palace becomes littered with party favors, balloons, and spaghetti sauce. There are hot dogs and pies (and broken furniture thanks to an impromptu suplexing competition) and all of their closest friends.

Almost all of them.

Sans is absent from the party - Papyrus mentions something about the lazybones recalibrating some crossword puzzles - but she has a hunch, and wanders into the throne room at some point, away from the festivities. It is there that she finds the wayward skeleton looking for all like he’s sleeping, spread out amidst the golden flowers.

She settles beside him without a word, feels the brush of flowers against her arms courtesy of the striped t-shirt she’d gone with today instead of her customary sweater, and stares up at the false sunlight of the Underground.

It is...comforting.

So much so that she startles when she feels a brush against her shoulder, jolting from the light doze she’d been falling into. Sans’ head is turned towards her, but he doesn’t wink, or make a pun, or say anything at all. He brushes his hand against her shoulder once more, and she tilts her head further to the side, to where the large t-shirt has slipped off her right shoulder.

The rich purple cloth looks almost out of place on her skin, with its delicate gold embroidery lining the edges. It is draped elegantly over her shoulder, crisp and fine, and she can only imagine it falls down to her side, almost as if a warm purple cape is draped comfortingly over her.

She copies the skeleton’s movements and brushes her own fingers against the new Life Mark, digs her fingers into her flesh a bit as if she can pull the purple material straight out of her skin. Sans remains quiet as he watches her, and eventually she leaves off, the both of them turning their heads back upwards towards the ceiling.

The sounds of the party from inside grow in fervor, but the two of them ignore it. The throne room is silent for a long while, and remains that way as Sans lifts an arm over his face and rests it there, covering his eyes.

Later on, she will remember how the tear cut through Sans’ bone-shaped Soul Seal as it fell, smudging it. She will remember reaching out to rub her fingers against it, watch as they come away coated with chalky white. 

Later.

For now, she closes her eyes as she listens to Sans’ shuddering breath, and imagines the flowers on her skin bleeding off to join their brethren below.

 

* * *

 

“So, like...are you gonna stay here forever, man?”

It is a question that has popped into her own head every once in a while, appearing just as quickly as she pushes it out. With MK staring at her, though, it is more difficult to ignore, so she shrugs. “I guess,” she says noncommittally, and gives the monster a deadpanned stare. “Why? Do you want me to leave?”

“W-what?!” MK exclaims, face flushing a shade of red that contrasts rather hideously against the yellow of his skin. “Yo, n-no way, dude! I actually, uh.” Here MK falters, causing her to raise an eyebrow. “It’s actually r-really cool that you’re staying, man.”

She smiles and hikes the grocery bags higher into her arms. “Good,” she says succinctly, “because I think I’m going to be here for a long while.”

MK grins down at her. He has grown tall, very tall, and then somewhere along the way he simply stopped. Monsters stopped growing once they reached adulthood, and only aged once they had children. MK has grown into adulthood with a boyish sort of charm, if that even makes much sense, and there are mounds under his sweater that indicate appendages of some sort growing along with him.

_“Arms?” she asks._

_“Maybe,” he says, and smiles widely at her. “But dude...I bet they’re gonna be wings!”_

“Yo, that’s awesome,” MK reiterates sincerely, the flush on his face finally abating somewhat, “super sweet.”

She reaches out to pat his head, and they continue moving through the marketplace. She hadn’t even _known_ the Underground had a marketplace...and a hot springs, and a snail farm, and a mud ski resort. There is a vast majority of the Underground she has missed and has only discovered in recent years.

“I guess I was just wondering, dude,” the monster goes on to say as she stops to peruse a clothing vendor. The spider monster smiles warmly at her. “When we were kids yo, you know - when we first met and I didn’t even know you were a human, man. You just seemed like you wanted to leave here, pronto, you know? And now you’re all - ”

MK abruptly pauses, stiffening as she drops the sweater on sale to stare curiously at the monster. She’s all what? “MK?”

“Y-yo, I mean like,” he stammers, and she glances down to where his clawed feet are crossing over one another, a nervous habit that he’s never been able to get rid of. “You’re all grown up and everything, and so p...p-pr...”

She blinks bemusedly. “You’re all grown up too, MK,” she says, but her mind is somewhat far away as she thinks of finding Toriel sitting on a couch, and a teenage girl staring back at her in the mirror.

“Yeah, but not like _you,”_ he insists at bit dazedly, and she is uncomfortably reminded of Alphys’ shining declaration of real life anime heroines. “You’re so different from all the other...I-I mean,” MK blusters, “you’re so different _now_ dude, like, totally different now! And if you wanna s-stay forever then that’s t-totally cool with me!”

She blinks again, calculating.

“Thanks,” she finally says, mentally cataloguing the last time she hung out with MK. It doesn’t seem that long ago, and yet this is the first time she’s realizing he’s got a crush on her. The blue and pink bouquet of flowers on his neck suddenly takes on an entirely new meaning.

She decides the polite thing to do is to ignore this new discovery, for the moment. “Well like I said. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” Old hurts suddenly rush into her mind, and she can’t help the slightly bitter chuckle that escapes her lips as she adds, “Unless a monster decides to kill me to get my Soul - ”

_“No way!”_

Both she and the clothing vendor start in surprise as MK instantly flushes again, but his expression looks resolute. “I-I won’t let anyone take your Soul Frisk, I promise!” he vows, eyes screwed shut as he nearly yells it into the street, “I’ll p-protect you, dude!”

She leans back as he struggles with the words, studying the Life Mark on his eyelids. They are so intricate that they almost appear like stylized tattoos, painted in black ink and boasting a myriad of minuscule details...yet they are still undeniably star-shaped. MK has never renounced his childhood naivety that yearns for freedom, though time and age have tempered that innocence into a more complex and complicated understanding of life.

“Because I... _b-because!_...”

“ - you want to buy your lady friend some cute new pajamas for all _her_ spider friends, yes?”

MK gapes at her, then at the saleswoman, who is holding a tiny piece of cloth that she presumes to be spider pajamas. “Only fifty gold pieces for one of these authentic silk spun pajamas, made by spiders, _for_ spiders!”

The monster looks ashen, as if he’s completely forgotten that they’re in the middle of a busy market street. She resists the urge to shake her head. “MK, look - ”

“Y-yo, I gotta go!” he yelps, and then she is coughing up dust that is kicked up in the wake of MK’s mad dash away.

The spider sniffs. “Men,” she says conspiratorially, tapping one of her many fingers against the corner of her many right eyes. An undefined splash of green and gold rests near the edge of the middle eye, and travels all the way around towards the back of her head. “Can’t find two feet to stand on, most days.” The spider pauses, and then grins. “That’s why we eat ours as soon as we’re done breeding.”

She thinks to question whether the monster is joking or not, and eventually decides she’s better off not knowing. She quickly takes her leave of the vendor.

But as she walks down the market street, she can’t help shifting her bags into one arm to slide her free hand up her face. MK had spoken at length about how she’d grown...and a spider monster commiserating about men with her, as if she were...

Hmm...

She wonders.

She wonders as she approaches another stall, a camel looking monster that specializes in mirrors and baskets _(Need to Float Yourself Downriver while Getting Your Makeup Done? Not a Problem with Camelot’s Dual Mirror and Basket Installations!),_ and begins to peer into the nearest mirror.

Just as before, there is no jarring shift in senses, no sudden jump in time. No, there is only her face, both familiar and foreign to her staring back through the mirror, and she fingers the edges of her bangs with her free hand.

Gone are the remnants of baby fat, replaced only by lean edges and smooth jawlines. There is still youth, but it is hardened in a way that can only be produced by age. The face is undoubtedly hers.

But it is a woman that peers back at her through the reflection.

She long ago stopped counted the passing of days, months, years - back when everything would repeat needlessly on end, when it hadn’t mattered. She never got into the habit, not wanting to think about progressing forward, and now, the years have caught up to her again. She doesn’t even know how old she is, anymore, only that the eleven year old girl is long gone.

She hopes that eleven year old stays far away, for a long time to come.

There is a rustling from overhead, then, a shifting in one of the largest baskets. Her first instinct is to move away before they tumble down onto her head, but perhaps it is simply the experience of several lifetimes that causes her to reach up and give the basket a hard tug. The stall vendor is the only one surprised when Sans comes tumbling out.

“heya frisk,” the skeleton greets, looking entirely too comfortable on the dirt road of the marketplace, “sup?” Sans brushes himself off a bit as he throws her a wink. “you’re looking at me like i’m a real _basket_ case.”

From the far horizon, a very faint screech picks up on the winds, and she raises an eyebrow.

“paps is around here somewhere.”

 _I figured,_ she thinks, but she offers the skeleton her free hand. Sans pulls himself upwards, ignoring the spluttering stall vendor as he sticks his hands back into their pockets and grins.

“What are you doing in the market, Sans?” she asks, even though she’s not sure why she bothers. Sans has a habit of coming and going as he pleases, with rhyme and reason that is discernible only to himself. She’s gotten used to the skeleton showing up in strange places, even if she sometimes still questions it.

True to form, Sans only shrugs. “eh, i was shopping around for some trombones,” he answers, natural as can be because of _course_ that’s what Sans was doing, “but uh, welp. since you’re here, i figure i might as well _ketchup_ with you.”

She shakes her head as Sans pulls a bottle of ketchup from her pocket, but after being abandoned by MK, she can’t say she minds the company. “I’m pretty much done here, anyways,” she admits, shuffling her bags as Sans magics open the bottle of ketchup, “I only stopped by here to - ah...”

She doesn’t mean to pause, but words fail her as she glances back towards the mirror. It seems a little odd to admit that she hadn’t noticed herself turning into a full grown woman.

And yet -

“years flying by, huh,” Sans comments nonchalantly, staring into the mirror alongside her. “been a long time since the surface.”

She stiffens, but nods her head in acknowledgement.

“...heh heh.” Sans seems to study her reflection, looking for something in particular, but after a moment he reaches out and picks up her hand. She blinks and goes still, and feels skeleton bones running lightly over the golden flowers cradled in her palm.

They still coat both her hands and arms, but the tanned skin underneath is more apparent, along with the friendship bracelet on her left wrist. Most of the flowers look less constricting now, and more as if they are freely falling away from her hands. Sans looks pensive as he studies them, rubbing his thumb across the flowers that still form a shackle on her right wrist.

“miss anything, up there?”

Anything?...what had she had up there?

“No,” she murmurs, and feels her hand slide upwards, fingers slowly intertwining with the bony ones against her palm until they are interlocked loosely together. “Nothing.”

Sans does nothing for a long while, nothing except squeeze her hand. Just once.

And then he pulls away, taking a long swig from his ketchup bottle. “guess it all works out, then,” he says glibly, eyes closing briefly. “cause the surface is great and all, but uh...not seeing the whole underground would be...welp.”

Those eyes open back up, pinpricks fixated on her.

“...a real mis- _steak.”_

He is gone, there and gone in a blink of the eye, and she is left standing alone. Her hand is still open and flopping uselessly at her side as she stands there, because -

 _“SANS!_ DID YOU MISS THE STEAKS? THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE WE CAN BUY STEAKS CUT IN THE SHAPE OF SPAGHETTI, YOU LAZYBONES!”

“Hi Papy,” she hears herself say faintly as Papyrus comes barreling around the corner, which is more than enough incentive for the skeleton to gasp in delight and lift her up and demand to know where she has been hiding even though she saw him only yesterday, but that’s okay because now he has an excuse to make Reunion Spaghetti.

She finds herself agreeing even as her mind stays very far away. Papyrus doesn’t mind and grabs at her hand to lead her onward, red glove melding beautifully alongside the golden brilliance of her skin.

 

* * *

 

It is an annual event, she comes to realize. Something about the shifting of rocks in the mountain side every year causes the crystals embedded in the cavern ceiling to glisten and twinkle with fervent desire, and it is a widely anticipated event in the Underground.

That is putting it mildly. It feels as if every inch of the cavern floor is covered with monsters. Even Asgore and Toriel, members of the royal family, cram in close with others, unwilling to allow any monster to miss the event for a ludicrous reason such as royal propriety. They are more than willing to share space as equally as any non-royal monster.

They are even willing to share space with each _other._ Silently, she notes the way their arms press against one another in the crowded cavern, Toriel’s fire-coated arm against Asgore’s burnt arm.

She takes note of the way they glance at each other, Asgore far more often than Toriel, and smiles.

“looks like the two of them are becoming real good buddies again, huh pal?”

The question is directed at her from the left, but Papyrus answers from the right. “THE KING AND FORMER QUEEN?” he says loudly, and the two goat monsters jerk away from each other, sitting ramrod straight. “INDEED! THEY HAVE FINALLY TAKEN MY COOL FRIENDSHIP LESSONS TO HEART, AND STOPPED BEING SO WEIRD AROUND EACH OTHER!”

Sans nods genially, arms crossed behind his head. “you’re completely right, bro. guess you could say that they’re a- _pair_ -ently back on good terms,” he chuckles, and Papyrus predictably puffs up like an indignant puffer fish.

“Enough with the puns, ‘ya bonehead,” Undyne not-so-gently requests, leaning backwards on her hands. Alphys shyly fixes her binoculars from beside the fish monster. “You dorks really need some more japes! Japes are _way_ cooler than jokes.”

Sans doesn’t seem at all offended, and only winks at the fish monster. “whatever you say, _bass.”_

The sudden shouting of the crowd drowns out Undyne’s agitated growl, turning their attentions upwards. Apparently it has started, though it takes her a moment to begin seeing movement from above. The twinkling crystals in the cavern ceiling blink and sparkle rapidly, and soon, several lights are going off up above in quick succession, as if someone is shaking out a tree and sending a million fireflies fleeing for cover.

It is beautiful, even if she feels monsters pressing in on all sides.

Including her left, and she grunts as Sans is jostled against her by an overeager ceiling watcher. The skeleton himself winces, looking apologetic...though that looks lasts for all of a second, before it is replaced with something sly. As all the monsters look towards the ceiling, Sans looks to her, tilts his head sideways, and holds out one hand.

She doesn’t even bother to think, and grasps it in her own.

All at once she is standing on top of a cliff - standing in the road with Asgore’s palace off in the horizon, and hundreds of monsters sitting in the cavern down below. It is a brilliant move, and she can’t help but wonder why no other monster has thought to stay out of the fray by viewing the crystals from up here.

“tunnels are usually blocked off for tonight,” Sans unwittingly answers for her, as he leads her towards the edge of the road. He flops unceremoniously onto the ground, legs dangling over the edge, and after a moment she follows him down as he winks at her. “lucky for you, i got a shortcut.”

“Lucky me,” she reiterates dryly, but she actually is thankful - the din of noise is somewhat muted up here, and away from the crowd, it is far easier to focus on the actual event.

Up above, the lights continue to twinkle and dance their way across the ceiling.

“do they really do that?”

She blinks, head turning slightly towards Sans. He jerks his chin upwards at the dancing lights. “stars, i mean. real ones. me and my bro have got a little bet going.” The skeleton’s grin widens. “he told me real stars have cool dances like this, and uh. i told him he’d better...”

The significant pause has her raising an eyebrow, and she can almost mouth the words along with him before he says them.

“... _star_ -t paying up. pfft.”

She snorts. “Better go collect, then,” she says, returning her attention to the ceiling, “real stars don’t do this.”

“eh, that’s what i figured,” Sans say carelessly, abruptly falling backwards until he is laying on his back, arms cushioning his head. “no offense kid, but well, to be perfectly honest? the surface doesn’t sound at all what it’s cracked up to be.”

She’s never argued that it is, but she doesn’t bother pointing that out, and they sit in silence for a moment as the crowd _oohs_ and _ahhs_ beneath them.

“Still,” she eventually continues, raising her knees to wrap her arms around them. “Sometimes you can see shooting stars up there. And even planets, and entire galaxies.” She remembers Ms. Foster once waking up all the children to look at the Milky Way, spread out like a river of stars across the sky. “And the moon is...”

Cold, distant, a far away point in space that somehow manages to shine against a brilliantly burning sun.

“Always beautiful to look at.”

She pauses in her words, replays them in her head, and is filled with a sense of longing that she hasn’t had since her first few times running through the Underground. She _loves_ it down here, truly she does...and yet thinking about it now, the fact that she will never see a shooting star, or the moon, or the _sun_ ever again is...so very final.

It’s something she’s never thought about before, always too grateful to be out of the gaming replay loop to really think about what it means.

“heh heh. guess i should go back to _moon_ ing over the surface, huh.”

She glances down towards Sans, only to find him staring straight at her rather than up at the ceiling. She swallows as his eyes linger on her, pinpricks of light forcing her to stare back.

His words are casual and light-hearted, and yet there is a heaviness to them, one that makes her carefully consider them.

It is a delicate dance, one that they have been doing for years. These small conversations about the surface, about how great it is or isn’t...she has learned that Sans tests her sometimes, gauging if she misses the surface at all. Maybe eager to ascertain whether or not she misses it enough to try and finish the game. She’s not sure if he’s afraid for the loss of her Soul, or if he, for his own reasons, doesn’t want monsters to live on the surface.

He’d never much cared to go exploring the surface whenever they had been freed, she remembers. He’d always turn around and gone straight back into the Underground.

“I think,” she says slowly, “that it’s dangerous to always want something more.”

Another rousing cheer from the crowd as the lights twinkle above them, painting a picture that is beautiful in its own unique way.

And then Sans chuckles, breaking the spell. “think so? sounds like an excuse to do nothing to me. and, well...you know that’s my favorite thing to do.”

She lets out a breath and a light giggle. “Yeah, I know,” she says - and then just because she can, she falls straight backwards. Sans grunts as she lands onto his chest and slides down his extended arm, but he doesn’t complain. He only grins at her as the false stars twinkle above them.

“I wish I could show you real ones.”

The words slip out without her meaning to, and she feels Sans tense beneath her. She pillows her head into the crook of his arm, trying to convey what she means when she herself isn’t even entirely sure what she wants to say.

Eventually, however, Sans let out a light sigh. “nah,” he says, and his arm comes around to close in on her opposite shoulder, “forgeddaboutit. i mean sure, it’d be nice and all, but...to tell the truth, kiddo?”

He shifts beneath her, and she feels bony fingers curl around her shoulder.

“i’m good.”

 _Yeah,_ she thinks, _me too._

Not another word is spoken as they watch the crystals up above, the false stars twinkling with a beauty unmatched in the natural, waking word.

 

* * *

 

It is the first time she’s seen him without any armor as he stretches upwards and wipes a giant paw across his forehead. He’d been working in the garden for a long time before she’d joined him, and only now removes his gardening shirt to relieve himself of sweat. His blonde hair is tied back into a cute little bun, and still he works, heedless to her staring.

She remembers how embarrassed Undyne got, when she studied the fish monster in full detail. It’s not polite to stare for too long. But she can’t help it.

Every single one of Asgore’s Soul Seals are wounds.

The thin bands stretched across his forehead look like they extend all the way around his head, and she finally understands the source of the blood streaks on his face, as if something had long settled too tightly and too constricting across his brow. The golden flower bud tucked atop his head sports more thorns than anything else, tearing deep into the flesh around his ear. The burn marks scorching his right arm are much the same as they’ve always been.

Those three are uncomfortable to look at in and of themselves. But they pale in comparison to the rest of his Soul Seals.

There are seven of them, seven large, gaping wounds spread across his body. All of them look like gauges of sort, leaving reddened, disfigured wounds in their wake - but perhaps most disturbing of all, they all leak different colors of blood. From blue to purple to green...yellow, pale blue, and orange...

Six different wounds with six different colors, across his stomach, his arms, against his back.

The seventh one rests directly over his heart. It is the largest Soul Seal, gaping wide and open as if someone had ripped into his chest to show the world underneath. It is the only wound that has any semblance of a shape, looking almost like two hearts meshed together, joined at their tips.

The upside down heart leaks white blood, while the one up top, the one resting right side up, spills blood red.

She moves without really meaning to, and only becomes aware of how close she’s moved when Asgore suddenly jolts in surprise. “Oh ho ho, Frisk,” he chuckles, “you startled me. Have you finish working on...the, um...” He trails off, looking uncomfortable as she stares at his chest, before he himself glances down.

And understands why she stares.

“Ah,” the King says, with another small chuckle that sounds entirely too light-hearted to be sincere. “You are interested in my, um. Soul Seals, little one?” The goat monster rubs a hand against the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his fine blonde hair. “I’m afraid they are not very nice to look at, oh ho. Not like your own.”

She is making him uncomfortable. The self-deprecation in his voice is all too clear - he is ready to claim himself disgusting, to save her the trouble of saying it herself. Asgore’s smiles down at her, even as his eyes shine tiredly in the faint glow of the throne room.

She reaches out and brushes her hand against his chest, against the largest Soul Seal, and feels Asgore shift uncomfortably underneath her touch. In the gaping maw there is the faintest object, looking almost like a small seed, but it is near lost in the red blood that drips around it.

Her fingers curl into a fist against his chest without any real reason.

“Wh - please little one, it’s alright!” Asgore cries, gripping her shoulders, and it takes her a moment to realize her vision has gone blurry. “Don't cry! I'm sorry, I did not mean to scare you with these ugly Seals - ah, my shirt, let me put back on my shirt - ”

“No,” she says - _snaps_ , again without meaning to, _especially_ not when Asgore looks ashamed, as if he’s done wrong by baring his Soul Seals. “Don’t. Don’t cover them up.”

“Frisk,” the King says, at a loss, and she abruptly grabs onto his chest, throws her arms tight around him. He hugs her back instinctively, and she knows he is confused and possibly still thinking he has done wrong as she cries silent, furious tears into the fur of his chest.

“Don’t hide,” she demands, as she thinks of brushing her fingers against a starkly simple bone-shaped Seal and coming away with white chalk coating their tips. “Don’t pretend that you haven’t suffered.”

“Frisk,” he repeats, “my suffering I brought upon myself, little one. I was a fool - ”

“Shut up, Dad,” she whispers into his fur, and Asgore does so. She refuses to release him, and as one they sink into the golden flowers.

She has no way of knowing how long they remain that way, but eventually, his grip transfers around her entire frame instead of solely her shoulders. A large head rests upon her own, lightly at first, before all of a sudden it drops, as if his head is so heavy he simply cannot hold it up a moment longer. She thinks she feels water drip down the side of her skull, and she _knows_ she feels tremors run along the body she clutches to herself.

She wonders how long he has carried his sufferings in silence, forever marked a fool, a whelp, a dishonored king and a failed father, and she wonders how she could have ever been afraid of this monster as she eventually drifts off into sleep.

It is to the impression of a hand stroking her hair, and feet softly moving away through the grass, that she eventually wakes back up first, pillowed on Asgore’s arm with his other wrapped lovingly around her. She reluctantly pushes it off of her as she sits up, wiping at her dried eyes before glancing around. For no particular reason, her gaze falls to her feet.

And she pauses.

There are embers licking up her right ankle. Smolders of fire in an array of whites and purples and gold, that burn with tiny flickers of flame rather than raging infernos. She pulls her sock down a bit to discover the embers wrapped completely around her ankle, and she can only imagine that they cover her entire foot, grounding her in two truths that have only now become whole.

After a moment of study, she rearranges her sock and glances back around the throne room. The garden is still and silent and everything is exactly as they left it, save for the plate and two slices of butterscotch cinnamon pie resting beside her hand.

 

* * *

 

“Are _you_ a star?”

“No,” she says, despite knowing that she will be asked the same question the next time she passes through Waterfall, “I’m not a star.”

The monster hums lightly as she moves on, walking through the quiet caverns of the area. There are several spots she could choose, but she instinctively makes her way towards the bench, where the quiche still sits to this day.

It is a private spot, far away from the well-worn paths of Waterfall. It’s a private little corner, a dead end where monsters rarely come to visit, and today is no different. The bench greets her as it always does with the quiche peeking out from behind one leg, and she drops her coat onto it before turning towards the river.

Less of a river and more a creek, she supposes, as it runs by the bench to join the main river that courses through Waterfall. Just deep enough to wade into, less so for a full swim.

She’s not interested in swimming anyways, though. She removes her shoes and socks, instead, and slowly slips them into the crystal clear water that reflects the glowing Echo flowers nearby. The steady _drip, drip, drip_ of water from the cavern ceilings is her only companion as she stares down into the water, down at her skin.

The gentle embers on her right foot and ankle seem to flicker in the pale glow of Waterfall, as if they actually move and writhe and dance on her skin. The paw print on her left knee remains the same, whereas the flowers on her hands and arms have continued to relax throughout the years - though the shackle on her right wrist remains, the friendship bracelet on her left is now completely bared, and she knows the purple cloth remains a fixture draped at the edge of her right shoulder.

There is one other, one she hasn’t looked at for a long while.

Even as she thinks it, a part of her balks at the notion of looking at her back, of seeing that red smile leering at her from the darkness.

But she thinks of Asgore, smiling as he readies himself for disgust at the wounded Soul Seals running across his body. She thinks of Sans, tapping a finger to the bone mark on his cheek and grinning widely at her.

She thinks of hiding, and pretending, and how she once wished for nothing more than to climb to the rooftops and scream until her throat tore loose into the freshly fallen snow.

Slowly, she pulls at her sweater until it comes off her head. She probably looks ridiculous, naked up top save for a bra while she still wears shorts on the bottom, but she is beyond caring as she slowly slips into the cool stream. The water comes up to her waist and stays there, until she bends her knees and dips her head underneath the water.

She stays down there for a while - certainly not for long, she’s not Undyne. But long enough to feel the ache in her lungs as she opens her eyes against the water and takes in the sparkling riverbed, glowing unnaturally in the cavern lighting. She stays until she can stay no longer, and breaks the surface.

Her back feels exposed in a way that nakedness cannot accomplish on its own. She immediately wants to pull her sweater back on, to cover up the mark lest she accidentally spot it reflected in a pool of water...but she doesn’t.

Instead, she thinks of Asgore, and of Sans, hiding away the hurts as their own bodies cry out in pain, and when a pink slipper appears in her peripherals, she is not surprised.

“hey kid,” Sans greets, hands held loosely in his pockets. “i was about to take my break, but, well. i had to ask.” The skeleton tilts his head, and winks at her. “ _water_ you doing?”

The pun is as lazy as the skeleton, but she can’t find it in herself to point that out. In fact, she can’t seem to do much of anything except stare at the monster - at the bone mark he has painted across his left cheek.

Sans pauses as his pun isn’t rewarded with a laugh, shoulders slumping a bit. He hesitates, rubbing a hand against the back of his skull, and she lets out a sigh.

“Nothing,” she murmurs, glancing off to the side. She can feel herself trembling slightly, adrenaline and ache searing their way through her insides...but she is determined. She stopped giving power to her Life Marks long ago, stopped letting empty blackness define her life. She has made so many leaps and bounds that she’s certain her eleven year old self would be very proud of her.

And there is only one more to make.

She releases another shaking sigh - more to ground herself than anything else - before deliberately turning away from Sans, ostensibly to bend down over the water and wash at her face. She knows the glow from the Echo flowers cast her back in sharp relief, knows it in the way the skeleton on the shore inhales sharply. Quite without meaning to, she’s sure.

“I wasn’t doing...anything.”

She trembles and pretends she is simply cold, as the silence stretches onwards. And she’s unsure why this is so important to her, why she feels the need to expose herself like this after seeing Asgore’s Seals. Insurance? Confirmation? Because she is too much of a coward to see if her own Life Mark has changed at all, because she might have stopped letting her mark define her life, but after everything she’s done, everything she’s lived for - every other Life Mark she’s made living with friends and family and love -

If she looks at her back and sees gloating red eyes and a wide smile staring back at her, she will -

A disturbance in the water breaks her out of the bitter thoughts. She half-turns in the creek to see Sans wading towards her, fully clothed, and she wonders if she’s about to be handed another nice cream bar before the skeleton leaves her alone in the dim lit tunnel.

Instead, Sans stops when he is about a foot away. The glowing water casts his bones in sharp relief, making him appear dim blue all over as he pauses, staring at her.

The hand that catches her own is unexpected.

“you lost a lot of ‘em,” he says, and the non-sequitur confuses her, before she registers the fingers tracing along her hand. He caresses her palm the same way he did back in the marketplace a year ago, following the trail of golden flowers. “used to have a lot more, as a kid.”

They used to be sprinkled with the dust of monsters, too. “Guess I outgrew the appeal of them, after a while,” she says in answer, even though that’s not much of answer at all.

Sans says nothing in return, though his fingers grow bolder in their searching. Both of his hands hold her one, clasping it in his grasp as his fingers trail towards her wrist, where the golden flower chain still encircles and ensnares.

“heh heh. used to ask about everyone’s soul seals, too.” Sans speaks as if he’s talking to himself, trying to discern some secret from the pictures on her skin, eyes trailing up the few flowers of her arm. “you uh...seemed pretty determined, back then. like soul seals were your _soul_ reason for living.”

“...”

“pfft.”

She can’t even bring herself to laugh at the pun, because it rings too true. “I was...pretty obsessed with getting Life Marks,” she admits quietly, though there is no need. Clearly, Sans had figured her out early in life, before even she herself had known she was obsessed. “They were all I ever wanted.”

Sans doesn’t comment as she picks up her other hand to stare into the palm. In the dim lighting of the cavern, it is impossible to see the flecks of dust coating the flowers, but she knows they are there.

“and now?”

She blinks, looks back up towards Sans. The skeleton doesn’t look away from her gaze, doesn’t move away. The pinpricks of lights in his eyes bore into her own, demanding and insistent despite the lazy slouch of his posture.

“what do you want now, frisk.” 

What does she want. “I want...”

_freedom to be happy my life back all those wasted years a picture perfect ending_

_to show you the stars_

“I want a lot of things,” she says. Sans lowers his head and loosens his grip. Her hand began to fall downward.

She closes it, and grips Sans’ hand in her own.

“But I’m happy with what I have.”

Sans lets out a breath through his nose holes, so slight she almost misses it. She is only aware of it by the way it brushes against her face as his eyes fall close, and his toothy smile meets her own lips.

It is nothing like she imagines kissing a human would be, either by fact that he is a monster or that he is compromised of bones and has no lips. Either way, it is awkward and chaste, like kissing a friend on the cheek rather than a lover on the mouth.

It is awkward, but only physically so, because monsters never deal solely in action. Intent leads the way, and she feels the warmth pooling in her so deeply that it burns, more than the anxious beating of her heart, more than the fluttering in her stomach. It is her Soul, and Sans’ Soul, intent being read clear across the boundaries where physical interaction cannot, and she sighs against his mouth.

There is no need to break away - their mouths are not entangled - but still she pulls back with a flush on her cheeks and puffs of breath coming from her mouth. Sans follows her with his head, presses his teeth to the corner of her lips, and stays there.

The both of them stay there.

And then she is elsewhere, abruptly landing on her back against soft cotton sheets as Sans crawls himself on top - slowly, carefully, giving her plenty of room to change her mind and back out. She could rebuff him and claim it a mistake, and he would grin and teleport her back to her room in New Home without a single protest, she knows. Not a single grudge or bitter thought to her rejection.

Because like her, he is happy with what he has, and will not risk further by chasing after an unending chain of wants.

“you still with me, kid? frisk?”

She inhales sharply, focusing back on the moment as Sans leans over her, arms on either side of her head. They are both still wet, but she has a feeling it won’t matter much in a short while. The fondness shining in Sans’ gaze is almost too much to bear, but bear it she does, sliding a hand up one of his arms.

“Yeah,” she says softly, “still here.” She leans upwards to deliver a chaste kiss to his cheek, and he follows her back down, returns the kiss to the side of her jaw. “I’ve never...”

The chuckle surprises her. “heh heh. i know, kiddo.” There is a pause as bony knuckles brush against the soft skin of her stomach. “me neither.”

It seems almost unimaginable that they are both going to be figurative newborns floundering in this undertaking, but in a way, simultaneously appealing. “Together then,” she says simply, feeling gratified in the way the words darken Sans’ eyes to sheer points of light, eyelids falling halfway closed. The skeleton nods briefly, and in a moment of inspiration, leans down to rest his head against hers, face buried against her neck as they embrace.

They hug for a while, long enough that she wonders if the both of them are stalling in this new venture, and maybe it is up to her to lead the way. They should, perhaps, start by removing their sodden clothing. She manages to get as far as tugging at Sans’ jacket - before her hand is suddenly arrested in a strong grip.

“don’t.”

She flinches, wondering if maybe _he_ is the one who’s had a sudden change of heart. But he doesn’t lift his head from her shoulder, one arm circled around to clutch at her back while the other holds her hand at bay.

“don’t RESET,” Sans whispers against her neck, and the words freeze something up inside her, “don’t die. don’t go to the surface.” The hand tightens over hers until their fingers are intertwined, and he presses it down into the mattress, presses _her_ down, as if he intends on keeping her there, forever. “promise.”

“Sans,” she murmurs, wishing she could stroke his back, but she is pinned down as his form trembles, just once, against her own.

“promise me, frisk,” he says, in a rasping voice so threadbare that it almost doesn’t exist at all. “i can’t...i can’t do this all over again. not again.”

_She is eleven years old, and completely alone in a game that plays continuously on repeat._

“promise me.”

It has never been in her power, and in the end, it may always well stay out of her grasp. In the end, she might go to sleep one evening and wake up in a bed of golden flowers. It has never been her choice in the progression of the game, only in the stalling of it.

But she thinks he knows - somehow, however he’s been made aware of the game, he knows. Whether he seeks insurance, or confirmation, or is too much of a coward to try and check on the game’s progression himself...he knows.

“I promise,” she says, and does not add that it may be a promise she cannot possibly keep. But she feels it in his frame, the way he doesn’t relax for a long moment, that he is aware of it as well. That he’s been removed from the controls as much as she has, and she squeezes his hand as he nods against her head.

“ok,” he says, and finally releases her hand, using his freed appendage to grab her in a full hug. She returns it and kisses the side of his skull, rubs her fingers along the bone Soul Seal on his cheek and smudges it against her fingertips.

For once, time stands still in a way that doesn’t make her want to scream from the rooftops, as he slowly pulls back from her embrace to meet her gaze. The blue eye quivers in his left eye socket, and she swallows, but she meets him wholly as he leans down, intent dancing along their frames as they kiss again. Time stands still the way its suppose to, in a single suspended moment as clothing is slowly removed and skin is languidly explored and they lose themselves in each other.

She is the one who ends up seeing stars that night, and she only hopes Sans is able to get a glimpse of them as well.

 

* * *

 

She hears the sound of running water stop from down the hall well before Sans makes it back to the bedroom, towel slung around his waist. She’s changed the wet bed sheets in the meantime, thrown into a laundry bin along with their wet clothing, and waits on a dry and comfortable bed.

Sans takes his time with it, throwing her a look. Maybe it’s the sight of her sitting on his bed that gives him pause, but the skeleton takes her form in with a lazy indulgence. The frailty from their earlier activities has disappeared, leaving the skeleton as casual and lazy as he always is.

But they both know it has been replaced with a new kind of frailty, one that makes him hesitate to sit down. She almost speaks up, ready to demure away from the subject, but the skeleton apparently comes to the opposite decision at the same moment, dropping the towel to sit beside her on the bed. He leans his elbows onto his knees, eyes dim, but he turns his gaze towards her. Expecting. Anticipating.

So she looks.

The shower did its work in completely dispelling all traces of the chalky white substance he’d used to cover up his Soul Seals. That doesn’t stop her from reaching out to trace the cheekbone that has sported a bone-mark Seal for as long as she could remember, before she figured out it was a fake. She caresses the area, before sliding her finger up towards his eye, watching as his eyelids fall closed.

The tear streak looks so realistic that her mind actually stutters when she fails to wipe it away. He has a matching one falling on the other side of his face. They leak from the corners of his eyes and travel all the way to his jawline, and they clash with the vivid blue mist that curls away from only his left eye, winding up the top of his skull like smoke or vapor. She wonders how long he spends each morning, covering up the two Soul Seals with painstaking care.

They are probably the easiest to cover up, if he does cover all of them.

As with Papyrus, it is somewhat difficult to piece the Soul Seals together, but she manages. The splashes of red on his hands don’t seem to form much shape when held apart, but then he places his palms together and it looks as if he’s cradling a red scarf in both hands, keeping it safe and protected, even though one end wraps around his left wrist, keeping him chained. 

The old and wizened willow tree that boasts red leaves instead of green has roots embedded in his left ankle, twining all the way around the bone. It reminds her of the golden flowers shackling her right wrist. The tree is bent and crooked and so twisted that it looks capable of snapping in half at a moment’s notice, but it still holds strong against his calf, refusing to quit.

A perverted version of the Delta Rune is splayed on his right hip, familiar in its shape but twisted in the details. The feathered wings are ragged and torn, with a crescent moon resting between them rather than a circle. And instead of three triangles, only the upright triangle on the left side of the rune remains, the other two mysteriously banished.

Perhaps the most obtrusive of all, the red slash of color runs diagonally across his chest, a gaping red line that bleeds red onto his bones. It drips blood down his ribcage and even onto the top of his hip bone, mindless of the large gap between rib and hip, and she thinks of Asgore’s Soul Seals bleeding a myriad of different colors.

And on his back is...

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not like her own mark, no. There is literally nothing on his back.

But it is strange. Not that it’s uncommon to have blank skin - not everyone is like Papyrus - but the bones of San’s back are starkly white, almost unnaturally so. Too smooth, too clean, and too perfect. It’s almost as if there used to be something there before it was simply ripped off of his bones, out of existence.

Sans sighs, and pulls away to flop gracelessly into the bed. She joins him after a moment, thinking maybe she’s overstepped her studies. But he doesn’t seem offended, only tired.

“they’re suppose to mark our lives,” he comments, holding one hand up to the ceiling to stare at his palm. “keep our most defining moments.” The skeleton huffs lightly, more a breathy sigh than in any real agitation. “but to be honest, bud? i always kinda felt like they did the defining _for_ me, instead of the other way ‘round.”

The thought runs so parallel to the ones she’s has her entire life that she can’t help but laugh, and if it sounds a bit sad it is her own business. “Me too,” she says. “Like, I have to live up to whatever my skin decided was most important. It’s kind of funny.”

“heh heh. _hilarious,_ right?”

She hums noncommittally, and raises her hand to meet his own above their heads. The red scarf and golden flowers meet halfway, their wrists pressed against one another, before she locks their fingers and guides them back down, bringing them to her mouth so she can press a kiss to the skeletal hand in her grasp.

“But I think, maybe,” she says into the dark of the room. “Maybe it’s not really about defining moments. I think maybe, it’s about...”

She stalls, struggling to put it into words.

“Maybe it’s about...learning to love yourself anyways, even if those defining moments aren’t the ones you ever wanted.”

Sans is silent for a while, and she is content to let that silence spiral until Sans recaptures his hand. “welp,” he says, waving his pointer finger around - a blue glow envelops it, and she yelps as the covers are abruptly pulled away from underneath them, only to cover them a moment later. “i guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

She snuggles into the covers as Sans turns his head towards her, one eyebrow raising. “but uh, me personally?” He shrugs, shifting until he is laying on his side, eyes trained onto her own.

“i’ll make my _mark_ on loving someone else, instead.”

Whether it is an admission of his own inability to accept himself and his regrets, or an admission of something else, she’s not sure.

But, she abruptly realizes...she doesn’t really mind that idea, either.

“Yeah,” she says, bemusedly. “Yeah, that’ll work.” Sans chuckles as she leans forward, and they share another kiss before she settles down, snuggling close to the skeleton monster -

\- who pushes her away.

She hardly has time to react as he continues to push at her shoulder, until she rolls over, leaving her back facing him.

“Sans?” she questions, even as he slips an arm around her middle. He doesn’t pull her closer however, lays about a foot away, and she can feel his eyes gazing at her back, resting on the the dark expanse that resides there. She feels pressure against her skin, imagines Sans running the fingers of his free hand over her back, tracing the Life Mark. 

“shh. go to sleep, kiddo,” he murmurs faintly, seemingly lost in thought as he strokes her back, and after a moment he adds, “i’ll be here when you wake up.”

The early hours of the morning reach out to her with greedy limbs, inky blackness waiting to swallow her whole.

“Okay,” she whispers as she drifts off into sleep, and for once in her life, she cannot wait to wake up.

\-----

Asgore looks liable to cry at any given moment, but considering how resplendent Toriel looks in her modest gown, she doesn’t blame the goat monster.

“BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME, FROM PRECISELY TWO O’CLOCK THIS VERY AFTERNOON...”

The choice of officiator is questionable, she feels. But by the time the impulsive couple had decided to hold a wedding, it was either officiator or chef for Papyrus, and she thinks officiator was probably the lesser of two evils. She loves Papyrus, but she hasn’t eaten all day, and she _would_ like to enjoy something other than spaghetti for this special event.

“I, THE GREAT OFFICIATOR PAPYRUS, NOW PRONOUNCE YOU, MISTER AND MISSES FLUFFYBUNS...AGAIN!”

Toriel doesn’t even wait, and leaps at Asgore with her arms thrown wide open. Sans barely has time to step out of the way as the goat monster stumbles a bit, but he seems much more preoccupied with his wife’s lips against his own, and the two monsters whirl amidst purple and white and the crowd goes wild.

She claps and cheers alongside all of them as Asgore heaves Toriel into his arms, and the giggling pair make their way down the aisle. They don’t get very far - they simply walk to the end of the row and then turn back around, to where monsters are pushing the chairs towards the edges of the building to make way for a dance floor.

They could have used the entire palace for their vow renewals, but Toriel had said something about nostalgia, when they were a young, budding royal couple. She’d left it alone at that.

“OH _YES_ , PAPYRUS DARLING, THAT WAS LOVELY. AND HOW ABOUT THAT SMOOCH? THE AUDIENCE _LOVES_ ROMANCE!”

The assembled monsters cheer as Mettaton abruptly takes the stage for the reception, and she is hastily ushered away as the pulpit is quickly transformed into a performance area. “NOW,” Mettaton cajoles into the microphone, “WHO’S READY TO _DANCE,_ DARLINGS?”

That is Asgore and Toriel’s cue to begin the first dance, but they are still too busy nuzzling noses with one another. There is a long awkward silence as everyone stares at the giggling couple.

“Oh, what the hell,” Undyne suddenly roars, even though her face is flushed green as she stomps forward. The fully petaled cherry blossoms on her shoulder seem to dance in the pull and flex of the fish monster’s muscles. “C’mere Al!”

“W-wha - _eep!”_

Undyne and Alphys take the floor by storm - pretty much literally, as several monsters have to hastily clear away from the blue spears Undyne expresses in excitement, but then Papyrus suddenly joins in with a resounding “NYEH HEH HEH!”, and that breaks the ice enough for other monsters to pour onto the floor.

That leaves her on the edges of the dance floor, with a clear gateway to the buffet she can see on the far end of the ballroom. She manages to make it all of two steps before she runs into an uncompromising wall of bones.

Said bones look very fetching in a dark tux, so she forgives them.

“where do you think you’re going, pal,” he drawls, straightening out his tie, “the party’s just getting started.”

“Just a little bit,” she tries, attempting to edge around him. He deftly catches her arm on the way and spins her around before she even knows which direction she’s facing again.

“nope,” he says succinctly, winding an arm around her waist, and she is pulled onto the dance floor. “that’ll have to wait. my bro told me that dances are a mandatory part of a dating couple’s regime, so, uh.” The skeleton winks as he twirls her around again, and pulls her in close. “i’m gonna have to insist.”

“You insist on a lot of things,” she deadpans, even as her arms automatically slide around his neck, hips swaying to the music in the background. “I thought you were suppose to be the lazy one?”

“heh heh. what can i say? gotta live life while you can, eh?” Sans rests his hands against her hips, but his eyes feel heavier still as he glances up at her. “besides, there’s something i’ve been meaning to a- _dress_ , anyways.”

“Something about how good I look in my dress?” she guesses, considering the weight on his words. The purple and gold bridesmaid dress is feather light and low cut, showing off the skin of her collarbone and back. It glimmers in the lamplight with every motion of her body.

“something like,” Sans says agreeably, leaning in even closer, and she shivers as she feels bony fingers caress down her hip towards her thigh. “but mostly,” he murmurs in a low rumble that never fails to make her knees feel just a _little_ bit weak, “about how i think you’d look even better out of it.”

“Yeah?” she says breathlessly, hunger forgotten for a moment. Sans hums, head tilting upwards slightly as she leans down to meet his -

“Hey Papyrus! Bet you can’t stack as many tables as me!”

“NYEH HEH HEH! CHECK IT!”

“U-Undyne no, that f-food is for - ”

_“Ngaaaaah!”_

“I knew I should have made a break for it,” she sighs, as the sounds of several plates filled with delicious food crashing onto the floor fills the chambers. All the monsters stop to turn and stare - except for Asgore and Toriel, who have moved on from nose nuzzling to fluttering their lips at one another in sickeningly apparent adoration.

Even _she_ can’t help but gag a little. She’d thought everyone had been kidding about the levels of mush the two monsters used to engage in, but Asgore and Toriel really take lovey-dovey to an entirely unheard of level.

Still, the fondness overrides the disgust as she watches the two monsters, decked out in simple garbs entirely unbefitting a King and Queen. She watches as they whisper sweet nothing in each other’s ears, fully blossomed golden flowers painted into white fur where there used to only be withered and thorny ones. The fire on Toriel’s left arm has burned down over the years, leaving the warmth of a gentle hearth rather than a raging firestorm, while the burn marks on Asogre’s right arm no longer look charred black, and instead appear raw and shiny, a slowly healing processes.

And though his simple vest covers it, she knows that on his chest, the golden flower blooms beautifully and powerfully between the two bleeding hearts, new love taken root in old pains.

“Ah, damnit,” Undyne groans loudly from across the hall, “that doesn’t count! Do over!”

“DO OVER! BUT, UHM, WE SHOULD PROBABLY CLEAN THIS UP FIRST...I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THERE WERE SO MANY MUGS.” She can just barely make out Papyrus tall frame in the distance, rubbing one hand confusedly against his skull. “WHO USES MUGS AT A WEDDING?”

“hmm,” Sans says, “it’s kinda hot in here. i think we should spa- _ghetti_ outta here for some fresh air, don’t you?”

“Well, w-wasn’t Sans in c-charge of the silverware?”

“YES! SANS WAS ALSO IN CHARGE OF GETTING THE AIR CONDITIONER WORKING CORRECTLY, BECAUSE HE ASSURED ME IT WAS A LITTLE BIT MUGGY INSIDE OF THE - HRNK.”

“yeah,” Sans says, “i think we should.”

She’s not exactly given a choice in the matter as one moment they’re in the crowded ballroom, the next, they are on a far removed balcony, with the reception area across the way. Through the windows she can see Papyrus weaving in and out of monsters, and it amazes her that even at this distance she can quite clearly make out the skeleton’s eyes nearly bulging out of his skull.

“One of these days you’re going to drive him insane, you know,” she predicts idly, resting her elbows onto the balcony railing.

Sans is, of course, completely unrepentant. “eh, paps is a cool guy,” the skeleton shrugs, slipping his hands into his pockets as he winks at her. “nothing can rattle his bones for long.”

“Yours too?” she asks rhetorically, staring up at the cavern ceiling, and Sans comes to join her against the railing.

“you know me, babe,” he answers anyways, and she feels him press against her back, arms coming to slink around her waist. “un-rattle-ble.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” she says mildly, delighting in the way his arms clench around her frame for a moment, before she spins around in his grasp. He doesn’t bother leaning away, and in fact only leans further forward, keeping her trapped against the balcony railing.

“sounds like a promise,” he counters as she wraps her arms around his neck, and pauses to caress the side of his face, careful not to smudge the bone-shaped mark that hides from the world the secrets he is only willing to share with her.

For now. Maybe in time, but for now...

“Always,” she whispers, and the playfulness in Sans’ eyes fades into something softer, something sincere. He brings his hands around her waist, one hand resting against the small of her back while the other rests against her upper back, and under the dim lighting of the false stars up above, they kiss.

(Later on, she will glance at her back through a mirror, and see the dark angel wings spread across her back, dotted with a thousand glittering stars dancing around a full moon resting on her left shoulder blade.

Later on, Sans will turn around with uncharacteristic shyness to show her the head of a skeletal dragon looking monster on his back, painted in an array of sky blues and fluffy white clouds, and a blazing sun where its left eye should be.

Later on, she will bear a daughter named Elys, and wonder how she could have ever played the game well enough to deserve this ending that she has gotten.

Later on, she will bear a son named Arno, and think that maybe it was never anything she did to deserve this life, but with her and Sans together, they've earned it.

Later on, she will fall into the final darkness and Sans will follow soon after, and neither of them will fear waking up afterwards because they’ll know who is waiting for them in the early hours of morning.

Later on, they will live their lives in the Underground and never see the light of day again, and be content.

But for now...)

They kiss as the sounds of revelry and joy echo through the cavern, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, if Life Marks define a person’s life, then -

She will define them back in turn.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Good job TaleKeeper, good job with the SHORT story.
> 
> I'm really sorry I've been quiet on my stories the past couple of months, writer's block has just hit me hard. So I've been writing out some short stories just to get the writing juices flowing again. THIS story was only suppose to be about 5000 words or so, but I keep adding on to explain certain things, and it ended up becoming this. xD I hope people still like it. I've been really wanting to do one of these "stuff happens on the skin" universes, and finally got around to finishing it. 
> 
> Also, Elys and Arno are references to the wonderful Shayromi's Frans Family AU. They are absolutely adorable, and so is her art! Go check them out here: https://shayromi.tumblr.com/post/175286019828/frans-family-masterpost
> 
> In case anyone is still confused about some of the marks and wants a quick summary:
> 
> Starting marks:
> 
> Frisk - large black smear across shoulder blades and down to lower black, golden flower chain around wrists and completely covering entire hands and arms, dust on flowers covering the hands.  
> Sans - bone shaped mark on cheek (fake)  
> Toriel - inferno fire up left arm, handprints with seven different colors in right palm (eight total handprints/shapes), wilted golden flower tucked above left ear.  
> Alphys - blossoming sakura branches on right shoulder, bowl of snail ice cream with one spoon and one undefined blob on left wrist.  
> Papyrus - entire body covered with hundreds of small marks. Noticeable ones include hand-shaped mark on left shoulder, reeds planted on right ankle/calf, blue dusty sparkles against left side of skull.  
> Undyne - budding sakura branches on right shoulder against blue sky, white dog imprinted on knuckles of left hand, river landscape running across right leg, stained glass window with delta rune on back.  
> Asgore - gauge wounds bleeding six different colors, bloody bands across forehead with rivets of blood running down face, thorny golden flower digging into right ear, charred burn marks on right arm, gaping wound over heart bleeding white and red blood.  
> MK - very simplistic stars on each eyelid.
> 
> Ending Marks:
> 
> Frisk - dark smear shaped like angel wings on back filled with stars and a full moon on left shoulder blade, purple cape/scarf draped over right shoulder, golden flowers falling from hands, golden flower chain on right wrist, white purple and gold embers on right foot and ankle, pink and purple leather bracelet on left wrist, white paw print with red inner paw on left knee.  
> Sans - red scarf across palms and wrapped around left wrist, bent willow tree on left calf with roots circling ankle, red slash across ribcage bleeding red blood, mutated delta rune with rumpled angel wings and single triangle on right hipbone, blue sky and white clouds shaped like a gaster blaster on back with a sun where left gaster blaster eye would be.  
> Toriel - same, except fire on arm is now moderated and gentle, wilted golden flower is now healthy and blooming.  
> Alphys - same, expect blue fish now swimming on arm between sakura petal branches, snail ice cream now has two definable spoons in it.  
> Papyrus - same, with additional angel-shaped mark on collarbone and snowman-shaped mark on right leg.  
> Undyne - same, except sakura branches are now in full bloom instead of simply budding.  
> Asgore - same, except thorny golden flower is now healthy and blooming, large golden flower blooming between the red and white bleeding wound over heart, burn marks are now healing raw skin.  
> MK - same, except stars on eyelids now stylized and details and more complex looking.
> 
> If anyone's interested in the exact meaning of some of these marks, let me know here or at my Tumblr, talekeeper-tales.tumblr.com and I'll be happy to talk more in-depth about what they mean and symbolize and stuff. 
> 
> In any case, hope you all enjoyed the story. I'm slowly getting back to working on my major stories, LTFU and BEV, but it might be a while before any updates on those. I'll try to keep people informed though. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and Kudos and comments and everything, you guys are awesome! <3


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